"That's funny," Ironhorse replied. "I was thinking exactly the same thing."
"I'm sensible, not stubborn!" Blackwood protested.
"That's funny," Ironhorse replied. "I was thinking exactly the same thing."
His voice did not change one iota from the first statement to the second, and Blackwood glanced over, raising his eyebrows. He still was never quite sure when Ironhorse was joking. He still was not quite sure if Ironhorse really did joke. "This is going to be a dull for you. I'm going to spend the entire time talking science with some dusty old professor."
Ironhorse leaned back. "If I had stayed at the cottage, I would have had to listen to Suzanne talk science with herself. I'm used to dealing with long dull stretches, Harrison. That's one of the survival skills you learn in the Army."
"You're just bored. You haven't killed anything in weeks."
Ironhorse glanced over. "I'm bored, yes. But I don't like killing. I just do it when I have to. You have this strange idea that I like it because you don't do it, even when you have to."
"I've killed aliens," Blackwood said, grimly, feeling the weight of it settle on his mind. "I've been killing when we should be communicating."
"They're not interested in communicating!" Ironhorse snapped.
This argument was all too familiar. They had run through many variations on it, but somehow, they never tired of it. Blackwood was always so certain that he could bring Ironhorse around. Ironhorse, he thought with dark amusement, probably thought he could bring Blackwood around. Two very reasonable, fairly intelligent human beings, with completely opposite and incompatible views on that subject. But Blackwood plunged ahead. "We just haven't found the right language. We don't know what they want."
"They want to kill all humans. They have made that abundantly clear."
Blackwood shook his head. "I can't believe that. I can't believe that an intelligence out there has no desire to communicate with another intelligence when it finds it."
"Even humans have a way of finding other humans unintelligent when killing would give them something they want." Ironhorse closed his mouth with a snap.
Blackwood didn't rise to the bait. "Not all of them. I need to speak with individuals. I need to find the alien who wants to communicate as much as I do."
"Fine." Ironhorse settled back in his seat, putting one hand on his knee and looking forward. "You try to find the right one all you want. But I'm going to make sure you're not going to get killed doing it."
It was the closest to a capitulation Blackwood had ever gotten out of the man, and he basked in it for a moment. Only for a moment, however. Ironhorse had a rather proactive stance when it came to protection, after all.
If the results of that proactiveness were not so counterproductive when it came to Blackwood's own goals, he reflected, it would be rather flattering.
------
Pasadena was warm and sunny, exactly as Southern California should be; the traffic was aggressive to a point of near-lethality - again, exactly as Southern California should be. The combination of the two left Blackwood sweaty by the time they reached the Institute's grounds, and he shrugged off his flannel overshirt as he searched for a parking space. This proved to be a nontrivial task.
"It's staying there until we leave," he told Ironhorse. The other man nodded as he shrugged out of his fatigue jacket, tossed it in the back, and pulled out his pack.
They cut across campus to reach the biology department, and Blackwood was glad that they did. The walk was very pleasant. The day was warm and sunny, without a cloud marring the blue sky. Trees grew gracefully out of lush green grass, and birds twittered a greeting at Harrison. He smiled back at them. The alien threat seemed far away from this peaceful, sweet-smelling place.
"We're just going to walk in?" Ironhorse asked.
"Yep!" Blackwood held the door open. "Unless there's a meeting, the chair should be puttering around in his lab." They climbed the stairs to find that Blackwood had been completely correct. The chair of the biology department, a portly man with grey hair that was beating a steady retreat from his forehead, was speaking with a graduate student that seemed relieved to have his professor pulled away by visitors.
"Call ahead next time, Dr. Blackwood!" the chair said, pulling out seats in his office for the two visitors, panting a bit from even that slight exertion. "I always love to speak with visiting researchers, but I have to know that they're visiting in order to be on hand!"
"I just happened to be in town, Dr. Strand, and thought I'd take a chance." Blackwood sat with a smile.
"Call me Philip, please. So, you're interested in DNA methylation, are you?"
Blackwood was not in the least bit interested in it, but he pretended he was, nodding solemnly as Philip talked and asking searching questions at the proper points. One of his ex-girlfriends had told him that she had gotten by at departmental parties by asking everyone she met to tell them of their research, then listening with great earnestness. It was a lesson that Blackwood took to heart, even though he knew he himself was susceptible to that same ego-stroking trap. He glanced at Ironhorse now and again; the man affected a convincing air of passive interest. Blackwood wondered if he had perfected sleeping with his eyes closed.
"It's been most fascinating speaking with you," Blackwood said, once Philip had run out of steam. "Perhaps you could help me with something else. I was hoping to speak with a Dr. Glastonye about memory research..."
The chair threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Oh, Harrison, don't waste your time. Glastonye is an old fraud. If you're interested in memory research, I can give you half a dozen references that are, well," he coughed, "legitimate."
"So Glastonye is no longer a professor here?" Blackwood asked.
"Oh, no, no, not for years! Not since the retractions - which occurred under my predecessor, I should mention. That old kook still lives around here, but there is no place in our faculty for bad science."
"Nearby? Where? We'd like to pay a visit."
Philip frowned. "If you're sure..." he said, reluctantly. He pulled open a drawer in his desk and fished around in it, finally pulling a sheet of paper out of a file folder. He put it on his desk and copied something off of it in a barely-legible scrawl. "It's actually only a few blocks away from here. Glastonye likes to stroll by, feed the pigeons, and growl at the undergraduates. But you're wasting your time."
"I have time to waste." Blackwood smiled and shook Philip's hand before he took the offered piece of paper. Ironhorse came back to life and stood as well, and after a few genial farewells, they stepped back out into the warm sun.
"Up for a walk?" Blackwood asked, taking a deep breath.
The house that matched the address on the paper was small and dilapidated, grey paint barely holding on to the exterior. It was clean, however, and the small garden was arranged and pruned with an almost frightening precision, rosebushes planted in rows like short, thorny soldiers. Blackwood paused to bend down and smell them. They were arranged by color, and each color had a unique scent.
"This is no time to stop and smell the roses, Blackwood!" Ironhorse snapped. He strode up the steps and banged on the door. Blackwood walked up the steps behind him as the door opened. A small woman stepped out of the house, peering up at Ironhorse. Her wrinkled skin had the texture and color of old parchment, and her close-cropped hair was pure white. She could have been any age from sixty to a hundred and ten. "We're here to see Dr. Glastonye," Ironhorse said, imperiously.
Blackwood started to say something, then bit his tongue.
"I'm Dr. Glastonye," she said, in a voice like a cracked alto saxophone. "What do you want?"
Ironhorse opened his mouth, closed it, and turned back to Blackwood. The other man smiled and stepped up to the porch. "I'm Dr. Harrison Blackwood. I wanted to talk to you about your research."
Glastonye peered at Blackwood, her brow furrowed. "Nobody wants to talk with me about my research. Piss off." She stepped backwards, swinging the door shut. Blackwood caught it with the flat of his hand before it closed.
"I do!" he said. The door pushed against his hand, and he sighed. Well, it was worth a try, he decided. "It's about the aliens!"
The door swung open, and Glastonye's wrinkled face peered around it. She stared at Blackwood for a moment, then stepped back from the door and walked into the house. "Well, don't stand out there all day. Come in and have a cup of tea."
The interior of the house was just as old, worn, and clean as the outside. Bookcases along the walls were packed to capacity. The hardwood floor would have cost a small fortune to install at current prices, but its scars and scuffs indicated that it had been there for a long, long time. Glastonye waved them at a faded green loveseat, and Blackwood sat. He held out his fingers to a coal-black cat that lay napping on a small side table; it sniffed his fingers, then curled back up with cattish disdain. Ironhorse sat next to him after a moment's pause to look around the room.
Glastonye walked out of the kitchen, carrying two cups on saucers. She held them out to the men. Blackwood took one gratefully, sniffing the wisps of aromatic tea. Ironhorse shook his head. She pushed it closer. "It's rude to refuse an offer of tea, young man." With a dubious glance at Blackwood, Ironhorse took the cup, settling it uncomfortably on one thigh.
Blackwood sipped at his tea as Glastonye sat across from them. "What is all of this nonsense about aliens?" she asked, warily.
"Your nonsense first." Blackwood smiled and nodded at her. "First of all, why do you remember the invasion? Most people don't."
She sighed. "It's all my fault that they don't." She stared at Blackwood keenly. "This wasn't my initial intent. I was a sleep researcher. I worked on the electronic rhythms of the brain in sleep, and how electromagnetic fields affected them. So many practical applications!" She shook her head. "And I did good research. Damn good research." Bitterness saturated her voice. "I happened to publish a paper on electromagnetic fields that would induce a hypnotic state."
"Mass hypnosis?" Ironhorse asked.
"Yes, yes! I couldn't believe it, once I actually tried it. It worked far too well. You could hypnotize rooms of people, and from that I extrapolated that you could hypnotize larger gatherings, even whole cities - it just depended on the power of your transmitter and your ability to project suggestions." She crossed her arms and settled back into her chair. "After I published, the government paid me a visit."
Blackwood tried to process all of this. It was mind-boggling. Intentional memory modification on such a grand scale! And done, not by the aliens, as he had feared, but by humans. Perhaps as he should have feared, he thought bitterly. "In the wake of the invasion. But why?"
"Do you know what it was like?" She shook her head. "No, no, you were too young, even if you remember. But can you imagine?" She spread her hands. "Mass devastation, delivered by fearsome aliens with fearsome, impossibly advanced technology! There was such panic. So many riots. Everyone was petrified about the return of the aliens, or another wave. The death toll from the aftermath might have been worse than what the aliens wrought." She sighed. "Humans can be so... inhuman."
Blackwood nodded. "So people were hypnotized, and memories were wiped."
Glastonye inclined her head back and forth. "Not wiped. My procedure was not capable of that. Modified... yes. The invasion turned into a series of natural disasters, in the end." She rubbed her chin. "Of course, not everyone is susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. And those who were directly involved in the response did not forget; an active role is more difficult to modify than a passive one. But most did, most did..."
Blackwood pondered. He was skeptical, but it all fit so very well. He needed to question her more, get the details of her procedure. "That's fascinating. I'd love to go over your research with you. Would you come back with us?" He ignored Ironhorse's small but frantic hand gesture. He could get clearance for an old scientist to stop at the cottage for a while.
Glastonye eyed them suspiciously. "Why? Are you from the government? Are you here to shut an old woman up once and for all?"
"No!" Blackwood paused, then amended his statement. "No, I mean, we are with the government, but I'm a scientist, and I'm interested..."
Glastonye interrupted him with a loud snort. "Government scientists. Run along home. You can drag me kicking and screaming, if you want to, but until you do, I'm staying right here." She looked at the black ball of fur that still lay curled up on the table. "With my cats."
This was not going to be easy, Blackwood thought. He turned to deliver an exasperated glance to Ironhorse, but the other man leapt to his feet, his teacup crashing to the ground. It shattered, spilling tea all over the hardwood floor. Glastonye jumped to her feet, yelling, "Young man!" Her voice and face radiated offense.
Ironhorse paid her no attention. He turned to the door, bending to a crouch as a burly CalTech security guard came crashing through it. Blackwood jumped to his own feet, juggling his teacup; the black cat on the small table reared up onto all fours, arching its back and hissing at the guard, its hair on end. Ironhorse lunged forward, catching the man's solar plexus with a shoulder. The guard's breath flew out of him with a noise like a deflating bagpipe, and he tumbled over Ironhorse, falling to the ground with a house-shaking crash. Ironhorse dropped to one knee and pulled a long, wicked-looking knife out of his boot; he used it to slash the guard's throat wide open. Pez-dispenser wide open. The guard gurgled as green blood poured out of the gaping cut; his face contorted as his features began to melt and bubble.
Blackwood turned back to Glastonye. She stared at the guard, openmouthed. In a quiet, stunned voice, she said, "They're back..."
"Let's get out of here!" Ironhorse grabbed his bag and kicked the hanging bits of door off.
Blackwood took Glastonye by the arm, urging her along. "Yes, they're back, and we're fighting them. Come with us!" He helped her out of the house, down the steps, and along the street. She moved slowly - whether due to age or shock, Blackwood could not tell, but he could certainly tell that she was not making good progress. He paused to pick her up in a cradle-carry. She was light, but he ran slowly with his arms encumbered. Ironhorse glanced over his shoulder, then paused to let Blackwood catch up. He fished a semiautomatic out of his bag as he waited.
A roar and a screech made Blackwood's head snap around. A State Patrol car swung around the corner and fishtailed up the street. Ironhorse did not hesitate; he pushed Blackwood behind a parked car, then ran out into the middle of the street, putting his right wrist onto his left hand to take careful aim. He sighted coolly as the car sped towards him, took two shots, and leapt out of the way. The patrol car careened out of control and smashed into the row of cars parked along the far side of the street, the driver slumped over the steering wheel. Blackwood glanced in the window as he stood. The trooper's face was already starting to melt.
"Move, Harrison!" Ironhorse barked, tugging at Blackwood's arm. The two men trotted up the street; Blackwood cradled the still-shocked scientist, and Ironhorse kept one hand on Blackwood's back, glancing about for any further sign of ambush as they headed towards their vehicle.