Cloud Invasion: R-D 2 (R-D #2)(15)

"The youngest one is the most dangerous, I think," Pete sighed. "As a human, he was nineteen. Here's his photograph, before and after."

Auggie looked, shook his head and handed it to me. Rafe drew in a breath beside me. In one photograph, Kevin Riley smiled as his senior class photo was taken. In the other, the creature that formerly was Kevin Riley stood over the carcass of a disemboweled cow. His muzzle, if you could call it that, was bloody from eating the animal from the middle outward.

Sharp, obsidian scales covered his body, while his eyes glowed golden as he fed. Claws on all six legs were evident, although he only employed the first two to feed himself.

"I believe that's a carryover from his human existence, only using his front set of legs to hold his lunch," I handed the photograph to Rafe. I was more than done looking at it and the next one of him, which showed him holding the cow like most humans would hold a chicken leg.

That's how large he'd become; that a cow-in proportion, anyway-could be eaten like a chicken leg.

"He liked showers after eating, so we let the fire sprinklers clean him and the blood up at the same time," Pete muttered.

"Cori, can you tell us what that is?" Auggie asked as Rafe passed the photograph to Nick and Maye.

"I know you're familiar with the dinosaurs in Earth's history," I sighed.

"That's no dinosaur I've ever seen," Pete protested.

"It isn't, because you didn't grow up on a world a thousand light years from here," I said.





Chapter 4

Corinne

I was forced into a semi-private meeting with Auggie after our meeting with Pete ended. Only Auggie, Leo and Dr. Farrell were allowed into this meeting. The Program was about to be blown wide open, and I wished that Rafe could be beside me while I explained what I'd known for a while.

"What did you mean when you mentioned a world a thousand light years from here?" Auggie began. I could tell his blood pressure was about to rise dramatically if he didn't get a quick answer.

"It's what the Program-and Cloud Dust is all about," I said. "We didn't manufacture it here."

I watched Richard Farrell's face as he turned it away from me. He suspected, he just didn't have enough evidence to make a conjecture. Good scientist that he was, he wasn't about to make a wild claim without substantiation.

"Where, then? Russia?" Leo Shaw asked. He still wasn't getting it.

"Oh, they have it too, just from separate incidents. I will say that they've taken its uses to the extreme, though."

"Corinne, stop talking in circles and explain this. Now." Auggie thumped his fist on the table, making Richard jump.

We'd been allowed into a private meeting room inside the underground facility, and I'd already taken care of the bugs planted there before saying anything.

"The original drug, which looks like dust to anybody who doesn't know, by the way, came from extraterrestrials. We got it once-in 1947. The Russians got it twice, in 1969 and 1986."

"Reported crashes," Richard mumbled while he stood and raked fingers through his hair.

"How does it work, then? Why was it there? Do you have any ideas?" Auggie asked. I could see that he struggled with the information, just as the others did.

"Have you ever wondered how someone from so far away might live long enough to reach Earth, if they didn't have a faster-than-light drive on their space ship?" I asked.

"Not really," Leo shook his head. Auggie just stared-he was attempting to piece this puzzle together.

"They had the drug," I hunched my shoulders. "It's called Cloud Dust because it looks like dust and it-and the spaceship-came from the clouds above us. I figure that when the pilot or pilots got to the end of their lives, they'd take the drug and have another life to live. The problem with all this, of course, is that it was engineered for their race. If another race gets it, interesting things happen."

"Oh, my God," Auggie covered his face with both hands.

"You're telling us that this is instant reincarnation, or as close as you can get to it?" Richard asked, turning worried eyes in my direction.

"Yeah. Only sometimes, that reincarnation should have happened on another world. In a different atmosphere, maybe. Or under water. Who knows? The ones who die? It's because they're reborn in the wrong place."

"Holy Christ," Leo breathed.

"What about the clones?" Farrell asked. "Can you explain that?"

"I think that was an accidental discovery," I said. "People-lots of people-have the same blood types. Take Becker, for example. Somebody with the same blood type, getting Becker's dust-infected blood, will become exactly like Becker. It's like a copy machine, regularly spitting out identical images, it just has to pass from an original survivor of the drug. The recipient's blood recognizes the same blood, and then the drug takes over. It can happen in a matter of weeks, as you've already seen."

"And blood can be kept frozen for a lengthy period of time," Richard nodded. "If the enemy loses one servant, as long as he has their blood, he can make as many copies as he wants."

"I don't want to imagine an army of Beckers," Auggie said.

"I'm hoping we killed off the last of him," I shrugged. I didn't want to tell them the other things I knew-Armageddon could come soon enough, and from more than one direction.