Event

TEN

Gus had walked in a dream state since the strange sounds of the night before. He stopped and removed his sweat-stained fedora and looked around him. He was on an old trail he hadn't used since maybe '64 or so; he couldn't recall the exact year because his mind was firing in all directions. He imagined his brain as a distributor cap with its wiring heading to all the wrong plugs. The incline was steep and the rolling rocks of past avalanches had kept most prospectors away, most of them afraid of being pinned or hit by boulders larger than most houses.

The old man replaced his hat and wondered for a moment just what he was up to. Where was Buck? The sun was starting to peek into the mountains and was stealing the cold night air. He shook his head as he tried to convince himself to get his old ass back down the mountain and find Buck so he could at least get his morning coffee and maybe a biscuit or two. He actually took two steps back down the mountain when the sobbing came gently into his mind again. A child's crying--that was when he remembered exactly why he was climbing. He was doing so because some kid had been lost up there and he had to at least try to find the child. It was up to him to get the child out of whatever fix he or she was in. The cries lasted at least a full three minutes this time before they ceased. The old prospector stopped again, more awake than he had been the previous times he had heard the strange sounds in his head. This time, unlike the others, he became aware of a feeling other than sadness. As he looked up the old trail, he became frightened, more frightened than he had ever been before in his life.

"What in the hell is wrong with you?" he asked out loud to himself, looking around him as if something were lurking," hiding behind one of the large granite boulders lining the old trail.

Suddenly he felt depression sinking in like a brick hitting him in the head, all at once feeling lost and terrified. Gus looked around the area where he was standing and nothing looked as it had before. The rocks had somehow become foreign to him; the dirt under his boots was somehow alien. His eyes widened as he desperately searched for something recognizable. He looked at the dark purple morning sky and the tip of the rising sun. This terrified him even more. Good God, what was wrong with him? It was as if these natural things were strange and foreign.

Gus turned and started back up. Whatever was wrong, he couldn't wait. He knew that. Something or someone was calling to him; he knew that beyond a doubt, and though he didn't understand why or how he knew, he was needed in the worst way. As he climbed, one strange sentence swirled through his mind that added to his confusion, repeating over and over, The Destroyer is loose.

He shook his head trying to clear it.

"Destroyer," Gus said aloud as he looked toward the sunrise, and it was never more welcome than it was this day, because that one word brought a sense of darkness to his soul.

Robert Reese was trying to hold his bladder in check. He had squeezed his eyes shut tight and was hissing between clenched teeth as it had been five long and agonizing minutes since he had begged and pleaded for them to let him urinate. The three men from the club whom Reese had seen on numerous occasions before this awful day had just looked at him and continued playing the same card game they had been playing all night. He had not seen the tall blond man in the eight hours he had been here.

"Come on, man, I have to piss, goddamn it!" he said, trying to keep his voice from having that whining tenor to it.

A heavy set man with a decidedly singular eyebrow looked over and spit his toothpick out, and it landed in Reese's lap. "You gotta piss, you gotta piss, whatya want me to do, hold it for ya?" he sneered.

Reese felt his bladder let go. He thought he could control it enough just to let the pressure off a little, but once he felt the warm trickle of urine soak his underwear and warm his leg and crotch, his bladder hadn't understood at all what the plan had been and it let loose in a flood.

"What the fuck is this?" the man asked, standing and sliding his chair back.

"Look, I just couldn't hold it," Reese said, feeling anger rise. Goddamm it, he thought to himself, someone is making a big fucking mistake. They obviously have me confused with someone else. They wouldn't treat an asset as valuable as an Event Group supervisor like this!

The man stood and started walking toward Reese.

Reese, through his embarrassment, fought with his restraints so he could get loose and strangle this son of a bitch. All he had wanted to do was to get paid for information the corporation had requested, and instead he found himself in some serious shit in a place that scared the hell out of him. Though his anger was blocking a lot of sensory input, he saw the man stop and look over his shoulder. He heard footsteps on the concrete floor, then someone patted his shoulder.

"Good morning, Mr. Reese," the same man he had spoken to last night in the club said in greeting. The brute quickly turned away and went back to the card table.

Reese looked up into that face again. The, man had changed clothes, was now dressed in jeans and a blue, button-down shirt.

"You've had an accident I see. Well, those things will happen at times like this."

"Wh... what... do you want?" Reese desperately tried to sound as indignant as he could, but it came out as a pleading, mewling sound.

The man smiled and patted him on the shoulder again and pursed his lips, then smiled.

"Oh, Mr. Reese, I want so much from you. And you know what?"

Bob Reese just looked up at the man who had made his life into this nightmare.

"You're going to tell me whatever I want to know," the man said in answer to his own question. Then he grabbed one of the chairs near the table and swung it over and sat in it backward, his tanned arms resting on the top of the backrest. "It's going to be hard at first, because you will want to resist. You will think to yourself, 'I'm a man, I should be able to hold out for a while,' but then"--the man looked at the spreading stain of urine on his captive's trousers--"you will tell me all there is to know." Farbeaux reached into his pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He opened it and flipped through a few of the pages. "Now I wish to know the reason for the Group's interest in this most bizarre episode. It must be the technology, am I correct?"

"Look, there has to be a mistake, I have always given you the best information, your superiors will be very angry that I am being treated like this."

"To start with, Mr. Reese, let me introduce myself. My name is not Tallman, it's Colonel Henri Farbeaux. Does this name ring a bell as you Americans say?"

The very moment the man mentioned his name, a slow, crawling coldness came to Reese and he literally felt the blood drain from his face.

The Frenchman smiled and patted Reese's right leg, then held his fingers up and rubbed them together, feeling the wetness. He smiled and gently rubbed them on his captive's shirt.

"To start the morning's festivities, Mr. Reese, tell me of this incident of yesterday in more detail than you did last night." Farbeaux paused a moment to light a cigarette, then blew the smoke toward the ceiling. "I understand from New York that Director Compton has declared an Event scenario. Would this have anything to do with his missing men back in '47, perhaps? But let's not get ahead of ourselves; let's start with this flying saucer, shall we?" Farbeaux asked, knowing that Hendrix had been alerted that the Black Team he had sent here was missing and had undoubtedly ordered another in. Farbeaux knew his time was short.

"Centaurus would never approve of you hurting me," Reese said hurriedly.

Farbeaux smiled. "Robert, I think we'll leave the company out of this one. I'm keeping the information you give me for selfish purposes. Besides, my friend, they have already ordered your termination by others; you're a danger to them now. Your only chance is to convince me of your value. Your reward will not be money, but your very existence. Surely worth the truth, is it not?"

Farbeaux once again patted Reese's leg, then reached out and brought up an unseen leather case and unzipped it. Inside, gleaming in the dim lighting, was a syringe. This he quickly and expertly plunged into a small vial, then he held the needle up and lightly pressed the plunger. A small, thin stream of amber liquid shot into the air.

"Let's begin, shall we?"