Monster Nation(94)

The vehicle was cooling rapidly in the night air. Its engine pinged from time to time. There were piles of broken glass around the windows, mounds of black charred foam rubber where the seat cushions had caught flame. Footprints in the sand. Heading northeast'the same direction the van had been traveling. Clark peered out into the harsh light of the flare and saw something out there. It looked like a body. He prayed the girl hadn't been killed in the crash.

He took a crowd-control bullhorn from his belt and switched it on. 'Nilla,' he said, and the name rocketed around the desert, bounced off hills a kilometer away. 'Nilla, I know you're here somewhere. You have to stop running.'

All around him in the shadows his vehicles were spreading out, taking up position. They would form a pretty tight perimeter when they were deployed properly. But did it matter? If she was invisible she could walk right past any barricade they made.

'Nilla, I know you're afraid of me. I know the last time we met was traumatic. Believe me, it scarred me, too.' A Stryker rolled up behind him and came to a stop. Soldiers fanned out on his hand signal, scoured the desert ahead. A pair of soldiers with their M4 rifles at the ready reached the body he'd seen and threw back a thumb's down. So at least it wasn't the girl.

'Nilla. I only want to stop this thing. I want to stop the killing, the violence.'

One of the soldiers screamed. He jumped up and down, grasping his arm. Clark was too far away to see if there was any blood but he knew what it meant. The soldier's battle buddy dropped to the ground and waved his rifle around but the girl was invisible. If she was an enemy, if she was too scared to listen to reason'it would be simplicity itself for her to kill one of his men.

He had to complete this before anyone got hurt. He turned to wave at the Stryker and his secret weapon stepped out of its rear hatch, escorted by two of his biggest troops. Beside them and their bulky body armor the teenaged girl looked even younger than she actually was.

The troops brought her to him and he placed an arm around her shoulders. This would be the tough part. 'Nilla, I'm sure you remember Shar. I don't want to hurt anyone. But I will if I have to.' He removed his sidearm from its holster and placed the barrel a few inches from Shar's forehead. It took real effort on his part to point the weapon at an innocent but he managed. “You could have killed her before, but you didn't. I'm guessing you don't want to watch her die right now.”

'Please, Nilla,' Shar screamed. She wriggled under his arm and he held her closer.

Nothing. Another of Clark's soldiers cried out but not because he'd been attacked. Something had brushed against him. Was Nilla making a run for it? He could have miscalculated how much of her humanity was left. He could easily have miscalculated that.

Clark cocked the pistol. The sound of the well-oiled mechanism drawing back echoed in the still desert night.

'Don't,' someone said, no more than a dozen yards away. Someone female. 'Please.'

'Show yourself,' Clark demanded.

She did, not so much fading into existence as suddenly standing out where before she'd blended into the shadows. She looked different from how Clark remembered her'healthier, strangely enough, as if she had prospered while the country suffered and died.

Soldiers fell on her like a well-drilled football team, securing her hands and face, knocking her feet out from under her. She tried to make herself invisible again but Clark had warned them in advance and they didn't let go.

'Oh, Jesus,' Shar said, sagging against him, her arms around his waist.

'You did very well,' Clark told her. He carefully lowered the hammer of his pistol, mindful of accidental discharge even though the safety was on. 'I promise, that's the last thing we'll ask of you.'

'Yeah. Okay,' Shar said. 'Just'don't make me ride in the same car with her, okay? I never want to get this close to her again.'





Monster Nation





Chapter Eight


McDougall was a scientist, a real scientist. I can trust his notes, surely. The mice in the control group have reached the inevitable negative result while the experimental group' some minor side effects, dermatitis, hair loss but you expect that with radiation, not that this is any kind of radiation Roentgen or Curie would acknowledge. But they're alive, damn it, they're still alive. This could be something, or not. Trying to stay scientific about this: lather, rinse, repeat. [Lab Notes, 1/18/04]