Chapter Seven

Seven

"Can we slow down?" Worried, Renee turned from the glass doors that August had just gone through, the twin security of human and Neighbor giving the feeling of not quarantine, but embassy. Her pulse was fast, and Jackson's usual smooth grace looked jerky as he took two steps for every three of hers.

Jackson pulled up short, his worried expression clearing as he saw her cheeks were flushed. "Sorry."

But he didn't say anything more, his steps slowly regaining his rapid pace as they made their way to the upper-echelon offices. The hallways were busy, but Jackson's obvious bad temper cleared the way. "What happened?" she whispered, and Jackson's jaw clenched.

"We found two of the missing Neighbors," he said softly. "They're dead."

Renee's lips parted, and she glanced behind her. August, she thought, wanting to go back. He clearly didn't know. This was bad, but it had to be more than that, or Jackson wouldn't be so pissed. "How?"

"What was that you were saying about Piers?"

Her pace bobbled, and she took a long step to catch up as they wove around a group headed for the cafeteria. "I didn't think you heard that."

"We have two minutes," he said tersely. "And then everything changes. Talk."

She hesitated, bringing her thoughts back from August. "Ah, Piers are a second intelligent species on Nextdoor. August said they were refugees from a closed-portal world. They seem to have equal status with Neighbors. August said they were doctors, historians. But, Jackson, I found out how the portal works."

He glanced at her as they passed into the hall leading to Hancock's suite. "You got past the ‘no words'? What is it?" he prompted. "We've only seen their phones, and that technology isn't that far above ours."

"That's because portaling is not technology based." Her gaze went to the closed door at the end of the hall, and she slowed, pulling him to a halt. "At least not as we know it. About a million or so Neighbors have what they call a creation spark. A borrowed energy inside them that they can pass on when they die. Get enough of them together, and they can open the portal. Jackson, if there aren't enough sparks here, the portal will close and won't reopen."

"Good to know," he said grimly, and she caught his sleeve, keeping him from moving.

"There's more. It also lets them evolve in real time. Change their bodies to better suit new conditions."

His annoyance vanished. "Seriously?"

Renee bobbed her head, breathless. It sounded impossible, but it had been happening right in front of them. "Haven't you noticed that their nictitating membranes are thicker? Even as their wings are thinner. Their fingers, too, are shorter. When Noel came, it took her three hours to go from needing canned air to taking the occasional sip. August's ability to manage our language isn't just new vocabulary. His throat and larynx have changed, adapted to handle the new stresses he's putting on them. He also says this creation spark helps translate our words to theirs in their heads." When Renee's hand okay, words in my head okay… It had been right there staring at her all the time.

"Hancock's telepathy theory," he murmured, gaze on the closed door.

She touched his elbow, pulling his attention back to her. "Jackson, their physical changes go all the way down to their DNA. Even to the sex cells. I printed out August's DNA today. It's different from when he got here. If he has kids, they will be fully adapted to Earth. That creation spark is their real technology, and I doubt they intend to share that."

Jackson eyed her for a breathless moment. "It opens a portal, then shifts them to survive what lies beyond it."

She nodded, then glanced at Hancock's door, drawn by Tayler's yelling.

Jackson hesitated, then put a hand to the small of her back, jolting her into motion. "Thank you for the information. Don't tell anyone what you told me without checking with me first. Even Will. And try not to show how mad you are."

"About the missing Neighbors?" she guessed, then her breath caught. "Tayler killed them?"

Jackson's frown tightened in warning. "It seems increasingly likely that she knew about the adaptive DNA and mutilated her group to see it in action, possibly killing three. But I can't prove that, and if you go off on a nut, you will make it harder for me to. Just stay cool." He let go of her and reached for the door. "Getting angry won't help me or them."

"Sure." But it was hard to keep a neutral face when he opened the door and the yelling got louder. What am I going to tell August?

Hancock looked up as they entered, and Tayler's harangue cut off. The colonel had taken the CEO chair. Yasmin sat to his right, her head down and her jaw clenched as she worked her tablet with an eerie finesse, not oblivious, but clearly not under fire, either. Tayler was on his left, admittedly farther down the table, her eyes hard as they found Renee and Jackson. Vaughn was there as well, the team counselor apparently having given up trying to mediate as he sat at the far end with his elbows on the table like a kid trying to ignore Mom and Dad fighting.

"I want you next to me," Jackson said as he went to a pair of empty chairs beside Yasmin. Uneasy, Renee followed, not sure if she was late or an afterthought.

"Why is she here?" Tayler said. "Her opinion—"

"—matters as much as yours. Maybe more," Jackson interrupted, and Vaughn gave Renee a sick-looking gesture of greeting.

Renee settled herself, wishing she'd brought a pen. "Can I get mad now?"

"Not if you want to stay in the room." Jackson turned to Tayler. "She's here because she has a better understanding of how the Neighbors will react to this than anyone else other than maybe Will. Your personal opinions of Dr. Caisson do not matter, Dr. Tayler."

"What happened?" Renee asked, and Vaughn, busy down at the end of the table, actually shuddered.

"Sir?" Jackson asked Hancock, and the colonel waved for him to take control of the meeting, clearly there as an observer. Satisfied, Jackson spun to the woman in charge of containment. "Show her, Yasmin."

Yasmin spun her tablet to Renee. Fingers flashing through windows, she brought up a YouTube video and filled the screen. "This showed up twenty minutes ago," she said, hitting the start icon.

Afterthought, Renee decided as she leaned to see. "How bad is it?"

Vaughn sighed as an excited late-twenties man in a cheap suit talked to a leather-faced farmer in his barn. There was a blue tarp on the floor before them, and Renee's bad feeling grew. "It's on a blogger's platform," the psychiatrist said. "A guy named Gorman. His usual game is making money on UFOs and bigfoot sightings. It's gone viral." He frowned at Yasmin. "Fueled by a residual internet memory of the Neighbors' eclipse arrival."

"Residual internet memory, my ass, Vaughn," Yasmin blurted, ticked. "There's nothing left out there. My team got it all."

"Then explain that," Vaughn said, and Hancock sighed at the end of the table.

But Renee couldn't take her eyes from the screen, a hand going to her mouth in horror when the farmer pulled the tarp away to show a red mer. His wide shoulders were bruised, and his wings were patchy with burns. He lay on the floor naked and abused. Gorman rushed to narrate, focusing his camera on surprisingly familiar-looking genitalia for a brief moment before rising to the mer's empty body cavity. One of his eyes had been burned out, and one hand had been mutilated, his long fingers left to mend out of place.

"My God," Renee whispered, and the argument between Yasmin and Vaughn cut off. "Who did this?" she added, her eyes rising to find Tayler.

"Why are you looking at me?"

Renee's anger flared. "Because I've seen those burn patterns before," she accused.

"It's not done yet," Jackson said, and Renee turned back to the horror that was unfolding. Yasmin was back on her phone, her loud voice competing with Gorman's commentary as Gorman and the farmer poked about in the empty cavity. Clearly it wasn't going well in cover-up land.

"Oh no," Renee whispered when Gorman angled the camera to a smaller, white form. She was missing her internal parts, too, and the jin's wings were gone. "Oh no…" Renee choked, gagging when the farmer proudly showed the Neighbors' wings hanging on the wall. Angel wings, he called them.

"Found 'em in a back field," the farmer was saying. "Don't know how long dey been there. The dogs rooted them out. I'm putting up a sign come tomorrow when my boy comes home. People want to know. They want to see."

"Turn it off," Jackson said. "It goes on for about ten more minutes. The long and short of it is they were injured and died."

"You mean tortured and killed." Fingers shaking, Renee stopped the video. Jackson pushed the tablet back to Yasmin, who immediately pulled up her text messaging and began to network. August. What am I going to tell August? He had been so hopeful of the hidden message that he and Will had been putting together, and now the other Neighbors were dead.

"Check my records," Tayler said, chin high and arms over her chest. "Those two were never in my care. You want to blame someone, blame that farmer for butchering them. You could forgive him for his confusion. They come across as monsters, and they didn't talk when they arrived."

"They talked," Renee said. "You just weren't listening. And that farmer was not responsible. Those cuts are too precise. Dumping their bodies makes you look like a five-year-old with paint on her face saying she didn't color the wall. Be a woman. Own up to it." Her eyes narrowed. "That's Han and his aide, Raphael. Where is Mikail?"

"You know their names?" Vaughn whispered.

"Of course I know their names." Renee stood, trembling. "August has been asking about them for weeks!" She turned to Tayler. "I will pin this on you if it's the last thing I ever do."

Tayler stood as well, her face pale in anger. "I did not kill them."

"Renee…" Jackson warned, and she pulled out from under his calming hand.

"I'm not mad," she said, voice tight. " You haven't seen mad! " She shouted the last, and Hancock cleared his throat.

"Okay, let's bring it down a notch. Tayler, sit. Renee, you too," Jackson said, and Tayler sat in a huff, her hands in angry knots. "Regardless of how they got there, I need suggestions on what to do about it other than dispatching a team to collect them."

Yasmin looked up from her tablet. "My group has already begun the process to discount it. Their genitalia is humanlike enough to turn this into a hoax. I'm going to need some dirt on Gorman, though."

"Good start," Renee said bitterly as she sat down. "I'm glad you're all so efficient. What am I supposed to tell August? And what about Mikail?"

Jackson tapped the table. "We'll get a DNA swab of the bodies. If there's a strand of human DNA on them, we will find out who it belongs to."

Renee frowned. "So we find out who is responsible, but that still doesn't answer what I'm supposed to tell August. ‘Hey, sorry about this, but we found your general and his aide in a barn, carved up like pigs, their wings stuffed and mounted over some guy's TV.'?"

Tayler's tapping foot stopped. "I'm not giving my genetic fingerprint to Caisson."

Renee's lip curled, her thoughts swinging. "You are not going to run the test!"

"Enough!" Jackson shouted, and Renee jumped. "The DNA samples will be tested by a third party in a double-blind study. In the meantime, I think it's best to keep the Neighbors ignorant of this. Renee, I will tell August after I retrieve the bodies. Not you."

"Good plan," Hancock said, cementing the action into place, and Tayler huffed in disapproval.

"Oh, now, hold up." Renee felt sick. "There is no way I'm going back to work and pretending nothing has happened."

"You can wait a few hours," Jackson interrupted, his voice holding a forced calm as he stared her down. "That they can translocate out of here anytime they want is an issue. So far they've been willing to concede to our paranoia, but I'm not going to strain their patience. Renee, do you understand? It's only a few hours. My men have already been dispatched. They know how to do this. This is what I trained them for."

Her chest was tight, and she stared at him, feeling out of control. "I got it," she muttered.

Jackson frowned as if knowing her thoughts. "Any deviation from this, and the offending person will be removed from the team. Permanently. Tell me you understand."

Renee's eyes narrowed on him. "I said I got it."

For a moment, there was silence, and then Hancock cleared his throat. "Okay. Jackson, let me know when we have the bodies in our possession. Yasmin, how long until you have this locked down?"

The woman looked up from her frantic typing, her face pale. "Jim, I think we lost it."

Hancock's expression froze.

"It's everywhere," she continued, voice rising. "I can't…I mean, I can keep taking them down, but you can't erase what people see, and they keep talking about it. Even discrediting Gorman isn't going to slow this. It moved too fast. I don't know why…"

"How can it be out of control?" Hancock leaned to see the bar graph. It was updating in real time. "It's only been out there for twenty minutes!"

"Welcome to the twenty-first century," Jackson said softly.

Peeved, but perversely pleased, Renee leaned back in her chair. "So I have to ask. Area 51…"

"Clickbait," Hancock said tersely. "Nothing there. Conspiracist propaganda."

But Vaughn was silently shaking his head.

"Jim, I can't stop this!" Yasmin blurted. "It's spread too far. Everything we took down the last few weeks is popping back up. I don't understand!"

Hancock laced his fingers together on the table. Tayler was silent as Yasmin quietly freaked out.

"Suggestions?" Jackson prompted, and no one said a word.

Until Vaughn cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention. "Ah, perhaps we should be the conspiracy," he said, and Renee blinked, not getting it. "It's out. Admit they're here. Own it."

"Own it?" Jackson questioned.

"Do you have any idea of the panic—" Tayler said.

"People can't handle this," Yasmin added, echoing her sentiment.

"Admit they are here," Vaughn continued, his eyes darting to Tayler. "That they have been for a while. Say that they're just now out of quarantine and they have an embassy within a US military installation. Tell the world that they are learning our language and they don't seem to be hostile."

That's weird. Renee tuned out Tayler's and Yasmin's rising protests, head cocked as she eyed Vaughn. The man tried to hide it, but he was afraid of them. And now he was proposing pushing them into the light? Hancock, too, seemed puzzled—but he was listening.

"It's the only way to get ahead of this," Vaughn said loudly to be heard over Tayler and Yasmin protesting. "Get August on TV. A couple of interviews focused on how they got here, and then some human-interest stuff to distract everyone from how dangerous this could be. You could even make a plea for Mikail to come in."

If he's still alive, Renee thought as she eyed Tayler's ongoing, loud protests.

"Tayler, shut up!" Jackson shouted, then turned to Vaughn in the sudden silence. "What kind of human-interest stuff?"

The young man shrugged. "I understand August plays the flute."

Renee bobbed her head. "Pretty well, too."

Hancock's focus sharpened. "Seems I remember hearing he's good at that ring game they all follow. Get some footage of that. The armchair football heroes will love it."

"Renee should be there, too," Vaughn said. "At the presentation."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa…" Renee protested, but Jackson was nodding.

"She works with him the most. And Will." Vaughn gestured across the table. "And you, Jackson, as the project leader. Focus on how they are like us, and how Renee and August have been working together since their arrival to make sure we don't make each other sick."

"Tayler has done most of the medical research," Hancock offered, and Vaughn waved his hands in negation.

"Like anyone listens to graphs and charts. People need to see us interacting with them, and that means Renee and Will, not a medical doctor."

Not to mention August hates Tayler, Renee thought, wondering what the wounded mers and jins who had returned home had told Noel. Tayler claimed the damage had been accidental, but if Han and Raphael could be linked to Tayler, it would be an entirely different story, seeing as Tayler insisted they had never been in her care.

Uneasy, Renee scooted back in her chair. "Okay, even if we do this, that still doesn't answer how Noel is going to react when she finds out what happened to the general and his aide. Not to mention Mikail is still missing."

Hancock took his clasped hands from the table, hiding them. "Jackson. Where's your team?"

"Moving into position," Jackson said, giving Renee a quick glance. "We should have them and the area cleaned up in a few hours. Maybe we'll get lucky and will get a lead on, ah, Mikail. In the meantime, Yasmin, have one of your people begin to set up a publicity release in case it's needed."

"Oh my God," the woman whispered, a hand rising to her mouth. "We're doing this?"

Hancock gave Renee a confident "there you go" gesture. "A few hours, Dr. Caisson. Surely you can keep your mouth shut for a few hours?" Sighing, he reached for his phone. "I need to call Monroe. Jackson, I want the report on your team's acquisition the second they have them."

"Yes, sir." Jackson stood, his motion startling Renee. "Come on," he said, gesturing for her to rise. "I'm taking you to a movie."

"A movie?" She looked at him in disgust. "You want to take me to a movie?"

Jackson sent his gaze around the table. "I'll tell August and Noel once we have the bodies. August shouldn't have to do it, and neither should you." He hesitated. "Though I would like Will there to make sure I say the right thing."

"I'll be there." Because if she wasn't, she wouldn't be able to live with herself.

Renee stood, her stomach light and feeling ill. "Jackson, I suggest you get a few human cadavers cleared to go Nextdoor ASAP. It's patently obvious what happened to Han and Raphael. Anatomy texts won't do it. There are thousands of cadavers being studied by medical students. Give them ten."

"Yes, let's make them more dangerous," Tayler said, and Renee glared at the woman. Jackson was by the door, waiting for her, pleading with his eyes for her to walk away. But walking away had never been easy for her.

"Tayler, I'm more frightened of you than of them." Renee shifted her gaze to touch upon everyone in the room. "Did you know Neighbors don't lie with the intent to deceive? It's too hard for them to hide their body language, so they don't do it. Excuse me. I have to go see what's playing at the Cineplex."

She strode forward, pissed to the ends of the world as she pushed past Jackson. Tayler had "allowed" them to find the general and his aide. That meant Mikail was still alive. And she was going to find him.

Once she did, Tayler was going to ride this all the way to hell.