Two more figures in the same black gear entered the clearing and stopped at the corpse.

  Trent held his breath, gun in sweaty hand.

  The figures seemed to be communicating, yet no words could be heard. Radio gear inside their hoods? It didn't matter. They looked back and forth at each other, glancing alternately at the body of their comrade.

  Then one of them produced something that looked like a pen. When he aimed it at the corpse, something issued from the "pen's" tip. Trent absurdly thought of Silly String, but this stuff was black.

  The man sprayed the pen back and forth, eventually covering the corpse in a bizarre black web.

  Then the two figures walked away.

  Trent kept his eyes on the webbed corpse. He heard a definite hissing sound, then saw bluish, sooty smoke rising.

  By the time a full minute had ticked by, the web had completely disintegrated the corpse, and itself.

  Trent walked back out to look more closely.

  The area where the corpse had lain was clear. It was as though the corpse had never been there at all.

  (II)

  Nora's and Loren's mouths hung open as they kept their eyes nailed to the monitor.

  The hundred-foot-long submarine had fully surfaced now, and sat there in the frame, floating on the calm water. It shone black in the sun. Modest fins could be seen forward and aft of the perfectly cylindrical hull, yet the ends weren't rounded or pointed like typical subs. There was no conning tower. There were no windows.

  And there was no propeller.

  "I've never seen a submersible like that," Loren said. "No prop? Must be impeller-driven but ... I don't see any intakes for the impellers."

  "Loren, I don't see any anything on that. It looks like a giant black Pringles can sitting in the water."

  The monitor frame continued to flash.

  Then the vessel began to rise.

  More slack-jawed silence as Nora and Loren tried to comprehend what their eyes were seeing on the screen.

  The vessel was levitating ten feet above the water now, and a moment later it began to move forward, toward the island. As it did so it began to change color, the stark black giving over to the green blue of the water. Eventually it moved out of the confines of the frames.

  Nora finally broke the silence. "You're thinking what I'm thinking, right?"

  Loren's Adam's apple bobbed when he gulped. "Yeah. It's not a submarine or submersible-it's a spaceship. And it ain't one of NASA's."

  "I don't believe in that kind of stuff."

  "Neither do I, so what are we seeing?"

  "Hallucination," Nora suggested. "Side effects of sunstroke, maybe. Maybe we have been infected by these worms, and one component of the infection is psychosis. There are many roundworms as well as ova of roundworms that can corrupt a host's DNA with a mutagenic virus. Maybe that virus is now in our brains and we don't even know it."

  Loren smirked at her. "Do you believe that? That we've been having shared hallucinations because of a roundworm infection?"

  Nora shook her head. She knew that she had no confidence in a single word that had just issued from her mouth.

  "Aliens, then," she said.

  "What else could it be?" Loren stalked around the room. "We know that the box full of worms in the other room and the ones that have overrun this island can only be the result of a gene-splicing and DNAmanipulating process that is beyond the technological capabilities of the modern scientific community." He reached up and took down one of the strange round lights on the wall. "How do you like that? A light that doesn't give off heat, doesn't have batteries, and isn't connected to a power source."

  "Just like the cameras in the woods, too," Nora said.

  "Sure. No power source, no electrical connections of any kind, not even an antenna, but-" He pointed to the bank of monitors. "They work better than any surveillance cameras we've ever seen." Loren was starting to get a little giddy with his acknowledgments. "Not to mention these monitors, which aren't connected to a power source either." He fiddled with the corner of one of the monitors ... and eventually peeled it away from the others.

  Nora brought a hand to her mouth in shock.

  The monitor was nothing but a clear sheet-like a plastic cover sheet for a term paper, and just as thin. Loren held it up, flapped it around, then rolled it into a tight tube. When he unrolled it again, it still held the perfect image of the sea where the vessel had just lifted off.

  "How do you like that?" Loren said cockily. "Boy, that's a really cool monitor, isn't it? I'm sure you could go to Circuit City right now and buy one just like it."

  Next, he pointed to the screen rolling the strange markings:

  "That ain't no military code," Loren balked. "It's not an encryption. It's fucking Microsoft Word from another planet."

  Nora felt tiny looking at the screen and all of its ramifications. An alien language, she thought.

  "And to top it all off, we've got these guys in gas masks-who are obviously the crew to that thing we just saw levitate out of the fucking Gulf of Mexico, and they've been running around this island the whole time, instigating what can only be a field test of a genetically created parasite. And we just saw one of those guys put a fucking bomb on a live RTG. What's that tell you, Nora?"

  "It tells me that their field test is over," she said with surprising calm, "and now they're getting ready to leave. They know enough about the modem human species to know that if they blow up an RTG, the radiological dispersion will contaminate the island so effectively that our own authorities won't be able to investigate the perimeter closely enough to ever realize that an advanced race from another planet was here doing tests on us in the first place."

  "Exactly."

  More silence. It was too much to contemplate, and too much to believe even after all they'd seen with their own eyes.

  "There's got to be a way we can defuse that bomb," she finally said.

  Loren laughed out loud, bug-eyed. "You're kidding me, right? We don't even know what it'll do. Just because it's only the size of a hockey puck doesn't mean much when you consider the technology base of the people who put it there. Nora, it could a millionmegaton bomb."

  "Yeah, but it probably isn't," she reasoned. "It's not logical. What's logical is what we just said. They don't want our authorities to know they were even here. So they're going to rupture the RTG core with a small nonnuclear device because they know the U.S. military will simply quarantine the island and believe it was some terrorist cell trying to make a point. I guarantee you, our side will believe that a lot more readily that they'll believe an alien entity came here to do a genetic field test, and then left without a trace."

  "Whatever," Loren said in haste. "But there's nothing more we can do except leave right now before all this shit happens and we get turned into dust."

  Nora's mind raced. Her eyes were all over the room, along with her thoughts. "Trent wanted to inspect the dead body, but we already know what he found, so I want you to go back to the campsite, and-"

  Loren's look of incredulity couldn't have been more glaring. "No, Nora, we go back to the campsite, get Trent, then go to that girl's boat, and get off this powderkeg island."

  "You go," she said. "It'll only take a few extra minutes. Get Trent and come back here. Then we'll all go to the boat together."

  "Bullshit!" Loren yelled.

  "I want to look around here a few more minutes," she insisted. "There might be some way to deactivate that bomb. There might be some tool here or something."

  "Some tool! You're crazy! Come on!"

  Nora shoved him for the door. "Just go!" she yelled back. "I'm still your boss, remember."

  Loren honked laughter. "Big deal! What, you're going to drop my T.A. credits back at Worm School because I refused to help you defuse an alien bomb?"

  "1 don't care!" she yelled. She was determined. "Leave without me, if you want. I'll swim back."

  "Yeah, Nora, the bull sharks will love that."

  "Just get out! I've made up my mind!" She shoved him hard for the door.

  "All right, already. Annabelle was right. You've got serious PMS."

  "Blow me!"

  "I'll go get Trent and come back," he agreed. if I get eaten by the alien worms or abducted by the spacemen, then it'll be on your conscience."

  Loren jogged away, shaking his head.

  Now Nora could think. She knew her decision was unsafe and stupid, but there was just too much here for a scientist to walk away from. She edged back out into the hall, then quickly walked down to a far room. More of the weird white light bathed her face when she entered.

  She froze.

  There was no smell, but there was also no mistake that what she now faced was a rotting human corpse, half eaten by a multitude of infant worms. The white male victim lay bloated, as if the slew of dead worms and ova around him had initially been inside his body and then burst out. There must've been thousands of worms and ova composing the morbid pile.

  This guy was a test subject, she thought through a wave of revulsion. They abducted him, infected him, and put him in this room to record the results ... He must've been dead for several days; she knew just by looking that the corpse had entered the stage of decomposition known as karyolysis, where the molecular lipids that form body fat begin to liquefy, and now the corpse and dead worms alike all lay suspended in that liquefaction: a congealed mass of organic rot. It was repulsive to look at but .. .

  I should be gagging right now, she knew.

  Why was there no death stench in the room?

  Very slowly, Nora reached forward into the air, then-

  What the hell is that?

  Her finger came into contact with something, a barrier. She opened her hand against it, could feel it as surely as she'd ever felt anything in her life. It felt like her hand was pressing against a pane of glass.

  But she couldn't see it. No streaks, no shine, no reflection of herself.

  A quarantine barrier, she thought, mystified. When she tapped it with her fingernail, the sound ticked exactly like glass. It's solid, and obviously nonpermeableThen she rapped it with her knuckles.

  Clunk, clunk, clunk.

  -and totally invisible.

  She left the room, numb now from all of the impossibilities she'd witnessed. Of course, their technologies would vastly surpass that of her own race. It's not so impossible when you think about it ... The realization summoned worse thoughts, though.

  What other technologies might be waiting?

  She was about to enter another room when she heard ...

  Rattling?

  Loren had closed the door at the end of the hall when he'd left, but now-

  Shit!

  The door was opening.

  Nora ducked back into the first room just as a wedge of sunlight widened on the floor. It must be that guy we saw at the RTG! Nora's heart revved; her gaze tore back and forth for a place to hide, but just when she realized there was nothing, the knob on the door began to turn.

  She ducked back into the uniform room during the same second that the door opened.

  She held her breath, watching through the crack .. .

  The figure entered, a stark shadow in the black suit and hood. No facial features could be detected beneath the mask's tinted visor. He turned, his back now to Nora, and he seemed to be inspecting the items on the shelf.

  Nora glanced to one of the belts hanging on the wall next to her; without thinking, she pulled out a strange flanged tool. She couldn't imagine what purpose it served but it did feel like metal ...

  If 1 could only hit that bastard in the head .. .

  But her chance was gone before she'd finished thinking the thought. If she jumped out now with the tool, he'd scarcely even be surprised.

  He'd taken something off the shelf, something Nora had already seen. The small square box-

  Another bomb, she realized. Just like the one he put on the RTG.

  He opened the lid and removed the hockey-puck-size disk. Again, he retracted some sort of rod from the disk's side, removed a small cap, and stood the disk upright on the desk. Either the rod had a base she couldn't see, or it had some sort of glue that enabled the disk to stand on end.

  Next, the figure's gloved fingers produced a small black cube. He merely touched the disk with the cube, and-

  Oh, shit, this is really bad ...

  A circular line of green light-thin as threadinstantly circumscribed the edge of the disk.

  And the line began to blink.

  Nora didn't need to see a clock to know that he'd just set the timer on the bomb.

  At least it meant he and the rest of the crew intended to leave soon. But HOW soon? she wondered. With no clock hands or numbers, she had no way of knowing how long the timer had been set for.

  I screwed up huge, she realized. I 'should've left with Loren. Shit-I should never have come here! We could be on the boat by now, leaving this place. Instead, I'm stuck in an alien coat closet, and I just watched one of the aliens activate a bomb!

  She caught a breath in her chest when the door opened and two more men in black suits and masks walked in.

  It was clear-by the way they moved and looked at each other-they were communicating, yet Nora heard no words spoken, alien or otherwise. It seemed that the first figure was giving orders to the others, because a moment later they were taking things off the shelves and carrying-them-out.

  They're taking their gear back to their ship.

  But would they take it all? How potent was the bomb? Would it destroy anything they left behind?

  Too many questions that had no answers.

  Then the scariest question:

  This room ... The uniforms ...

  Nora watched through the crack as the first figure turned and made for the narrow door that led to the room she was hiding in.

  She wanted to scream but her fear sealed her throat shut. Oh, please, God, get me out of here!

  She could hear the doorknob being turned, could hear the hinge keening, when by another stroke of luck she found another narrow door in the corner. She was through it just as the figure had walked into the room.

  She remembered now, how the rooms all seemed to be connected by the narrow inner doors, probably alternate fire routes for the old missile station.

  Thank you, God, she thought.

  But what room was this? One she'd been in previously?

  Her next glance around told her no.

  The image that glared back rooted Nora to the floor. It was too vivid ... and impossible. It was ...

  A woman.

  She was naked, and she hung from the back wall as if suspended in midair in a cruciform position. Strange black bands girded her upper arms and wrists, yet there were no cables attached to them.

  What was holding her up?

  It didn't matter. Nora's frozen stare ranged the wom an's features, most notable of which was a swollen belly like that of a woman eight months pregnant. Her head was arched backward as though she were staring at the ceiling, a mane of long black hair hanging in line with her spine. When Nora stepped closer and to the side she discerned the next most shocking feature: The woman's left eye was opened and appeared normal, but the right eye was an empty socket. A black tube or wire looped into that socket, having been threaded through the optical canal to reach the brain. A second black wire had been fed into her mouth and down her throat.

  A young college girl, Nora managed to guess through her horror. There were bikini lines, plus a generic vine tattoo around one ankle. Piercings that had been removed left telltale holes above the navel and through the nipples.

  She simply hung there.

  Nora detected respiration; then the left eye blinked. Still alive ... Obviously another test subject they were monitoring directly. The bands around her wrists and upper arms were the only things she could be held aloft by...

  Some sort of gravity-reversing technology ...

  How could Nora possibly get her down?

  The answer lost all significance when Nora reached forward and encountered the same invisible pane she'd discovered in the other room. If felt identical to glass but lacked any frame, any point of foundation. A containment barrier, she realized. A giant test tube.

  Her cognizance snapped back.

  The doorknob again.

  Shit!

  She ducked into the leg well of a desk against the other wall.

  They'll put ME in that thing if they catch me!

  The black-garbed figure entered and looked up at the naked girl. He extracted something from his belt, touched it, and-

  Nora couldn't contemplate the next thing she saw. Haven't I seen enough today!

  Via some arcane command from the tool on his belt, the entire transparent barrier she hung behind immediately changed tint. The room darkened while the screen itself began to glow .. .

  Like a big MRI machine, Nora guessed. But an ALIEN one .. .

  Now the image of the girl was being displayed like a living X-ray. The ventricles of the heart expanded and compressed, the aorta throbbed, internal organs expanded and contracted. But if that weren't enough, her next revelation surely would be.

  Another command from the implement threw a square border of light right over the girl's belly. Then the image within the square increased in magnification times three.

  The image alone nearly caused Nora to scream. But how could she, with this otherworldly technician in the same room?

  The magnified image now displayed the girl's grievously expanded womb.

  The womb contained a quivering, coiled-up worm. It looked like a -roll of hose packed into her belly.

  Just then Nora only knew one single thing in the world: When that guy turns around, there's no way in hell he won't see me sitting under here ...

  It was either sit there and die, or ...

  The figure remained examining the uterine image, his back to Nora. Nora stood behind him. When she raised the flanged tool high, the floating girl's head moved forward, her left eye watching-.-. .

  The black figure had only turned halfway when Nora brought the tool down on the back of his skull.

  He collapsed ... and Nora reached for the door to the hall.