Adaptation (24 page)

It was another hour’s drive north before they reached the exit to Petaluma that led to the warehouse Julian had mapped out on his phone. There had been hardly any traffic on the freeway, but now as they drove through Petaluma’s deserted downtown and headed west on Bodega Avenue, they became the only car in sight. The dark countryside on either side was broken only by the occasional streetlamp illuminating a dirt road or the corner of an isolated farmhouse. It was so much like the stretch of the Extraterrestrial Highway Reese had driven in Nevada that her
muscles began to stiffen with tension, bracing for something to come flying at her out of the dark.

“I think we’re almost to the turnoff,” Julian said from the backseat. In the rearview mirror she saw his face lit by the light from his cell phone. “Right after we pass Middle Two Rock Road, you’re going to turn left on the next street.”

A pair of headlights came into view in the mirror, the reflection flashing in her eyes. “What is it?” David asked.

“Probably nothing.”

“You sure?”

“There’s a car behind us. It just turned onto the road.”

“The turn’s coming up,” Julian said. “Two hundred feet.”

It was a dirt road that was barely visible even in the light of the high beams. The car’s tires crunched over the edge of the pavement and onto the gravel-strewn dirt. She drove slowly and asked, “How much farther?”

“We’re almost there,” Julian said. “There should be some buildings coming up straight ahead. There they are.”

In the distance, at the edge of the high beams, they saw a shed followed by a larger structure with a corrugated metal roof. A wide dirt parking area opened up off the road, and she circled the car around so that it pointed back the way they had come. “For a quicker getaway,” she said with a forced laugh, and turned off the car and its lights. A sliver of a crescent moon barely lit the countryside, but a field of bright stars was scattered over the clear sky.

“Hey, Reese, I brought this for you to use,” Julian said, handing her an electronic device about the size of a pack of gum.

She took it from him, turning on the dome light so she could
see. It was a video recorder. “Is this going to pick up anything in the dark?”

“I downloaded a plug-in that tricks it out so that it’ll work. You just point and shoot, but try to hold it steady so I don’t get sick when I’m editing the footage.”

“Why do you want me to be the camera guy? I thought you’d want to be in control of it.”

“It’s backup. I have another camera I’m going to use.” He showed her a bigger video camera.

Reese opened the car door. The air was cool but not uncomfortable, and it smelled of dry grass and cattle manure.

“Wait,” Julian said. “Put this on.”

He handed her something woolen, and her fingers discerned the shape of a ski mask. “Are you serious?” she said.

“Yes. We can’t be on camera,” he said, and handed one to David as well.

She pulled the ski mask over her head. It was too big, and she had to tug it up so that she could actually see through the eyeholes, leaving an empty poof on top of her head. She got out of the car, nudging the door shut. The sound of it closing was loud as a firecracker in the stillness.

“Shh!” Julian whispered.

“There’s no one here,” David said, pulling on his ski mask.

“You never know,” Julian said.

“You’re creeping me out,” Reese muttered. She fumbled with the tiny video camera and managed to turn it on by touch. The screen lit up, showing the ground beneath her feet outlined dimly in green. “Wow, it works.”

Julian hovered over her shoulder, checking out the image.
“Good.” He bent down to rummage in his backpack and pulled out a flashlight, handing it to David. “You can be in charge of this.” Then Julian turned on his own camera, lifting it up to eye level to pan around the moonlit parking area.

Straight ahead of them was the big building with the metal roof. There was a large sliding metal door in the center of it and no other discernible entrance.

“Let’s go,” Julian said.

Their footsteps crunched over the ground, the only sound other than the steady chirping of insects. David reached the sliding door first, but the handle was locked and it wouldn’t budge when he tried to pull it open. Julian had already moved on, walking around the perimeter of the building.

“Come on,” he called to them. “We’re not getting in the front door.”

David shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to check.”

The building was much bigger than it appeared from the parking lot. The side they had seen first turned out to be the shorter end of a long, rectangular building. They passed several smaller doors at intervals along the wall, all of them locked, and above their heads windows reflected the crescent moon.

Julian paused about two-thirds of the way down the building and turned back to look at Reese. “Maybe we could lift you up there to look inside.”

“What?”

“We’ll pick you up—David and me. You can get up high enough to look inside.”

Nervous energy shot through Reese. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe you’ll see something,” Julian said. “Please?”

She sighed. “Fine. Don’t drop me.”

“Awesome,” Julian said. “Here. You just have to stand on our shoulders.”

“Um, easier said than done?”

“We’ll kneel, and you can climb on,” Julian said. “It’s just like a cheerleading pyramid.”

“That’s gonna help me how? Since I’ve never been a cheerleader?”

“Here, take this flashlight,” David said, handing it to her.

She shoved it into one pocket of her jeans and then put the mini camera into the other so that she would have her hands free. “Now what?”

David knelt on the ground beside the wall and cupped his hands. “I’ll help you up.” She put a foot in his hands and almost tumbled onto her butt as he began to lift her. “Can you take your shoes off?” he asked.

She unlaced her sneakers and stepped onto the ground in her socks. “You guys ready?”

Julian knelt beside David. “Yeah.”

She put her foot back in David’s hands and tried to balance herself against the wall of the building as he pushed her up. “Oh my God,” she said as she rose into the air. Her right foot sought out Julian’s left shoulder.

“Ow,” Julian said as she leaned her weight on him.

“Wimp,” she said.

Somehow she managed to shift her left foot out of David’s hands and onto his right shoulder, and then she was balanced precariously a few feet off the ground, her hands splayed flat
against the wall. She was acutely aware of how easy it would be to lose her balance and fall onto her ass—or worse, her neck.

“Are you ready?” David asked.

“Yeah,” she said, though she didn’t feel ready at all.

“On the count of three,” David said.

She heard him counting, but when the moment came and David and Julian straightened up, she almost fell backward. “Shit!” She leaned forward, her sweaty hands sliding over the wall in search of the bottom of the window. She grabbed onto the windowsill and clung to it tightly. When David and Julian stopped moving, the bottom of the glass came to her chin.

“Can you see in?” Julian called up.

“Just barely.” The interior of the warehouse was lit only by the moonlight coming in through the windows. “I’m going to take out the flashlight.” She reached slowly for her left pocket, hoping that she wouldn’t lose her balance.

“Take out the camera,” Julian said.

“Hang on.” She clicked on the flashlight and shone it through the window. She saw large canvas-sheeted items laid across the floor of the warehouse in long rows, but they could have been tractor parts, for all she could tell. “There’s stuff in here, but I can’t see what it is. It’s all covered up.” The flashlight beam didn’t travel too far, either, which meant most of the warehouse remained in shadows: just lump after lump in the dark. She turned off the flashlight and carefully put it back into her pocket before pulling out the video camera. She balanced it on the edge of the window with one hand and pressed the Record button.

A light seemed to shine out of nowhere through the windows
on the other side of the building. She froze as it slowly arced across the warehouse, revealing more of the covered lumps, and then she heard the sound of a car engine. “Somebody’s here,” she said. “I just saw headlights.”

“Shit,” Julian said. “You have to get down.”

Adrenaline raced through her as she repocketed the camera. “All right, I’m ready.”

Her hands slid against the metal wall as Julian and David knelt again. There was a clumsy maneuvering of feet and hands, but finally her feet were on the ground again. Her heart was pounding so loudly, she could barely hear the sound of the car engine anymore. Julian was already preparing to go back the way they had come, but she had to put her shoes back on. “Wait a minute,” she hissed, and Julian stopped while she quickly laced on her shoes.

“Let’s go this way,” David suggested, pointing away from the parking area.

Julian hesitated momentarily but then swung his camera up and followed. They walked as quietly as possible down the length of the building, listening for the sound of whoever had arrived. At the end of the building, Reese peered around the corner and saw more warehouses—there were at least three of them—and in the distance, the headlights of a car that suddenly blinked out. Julian crowded up behind her and whispered, “Where did they go?”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“I think they’re in the parking area,” David said. “They just turned off their lights.”

“We have to get back over there,” Julian whispered.

“I know,” David said. “But we can’t run toward them. What if they see us?”

“Come this way,” Reese whispered, sprinting across the gap between the first two warehouses. She paused on the far side, ducking into the shadows as Julian and David caught up to her. “Maybe we can circle around the parking lot from the other side. Then they won’t see us.”

“What other side?” Julian asked. “There’s only one side!”

“Shh,” David said suddenly, and they pressed themselves against the wall of the second warehouse and waited. They heard footsteps on the dirt: a very light
crunch crunch crunch
. The sound stopped. Reese held her breath.

A beam of light shone out from a powerful flashlight. It swept across the field behind the warehouses, and Reese saw rolling grass and a dilapidated wooden shed in the distance. A cow mooed. The light shut off, and the footsteps began again. But this time, as she listened closely, she realized there were two people walking.

And they were coming directly toward them.

Reese gestured wildly to David and Julian, pointing away from the sound of the footsteps, and then she took off, feet pounding on the dirt. She heard David and Julian running after her. She heard someone shouting—a man—and the flashlight came on again, the beam bouncing on the ground at her feet. She saw the end of the warehouse on her left. As she rounded the corner, a semitruck loomed up in front of her, parked on the edge of the field. The flashlight beam danced over the side of the truck, revealing the image of an atom along with three letters that stopped her cold:
EC&R
.

David banged into her, whispering fiercely, “What are you doing?” He grabbed her hand and pulled her onward. She ran as if her life depended on it, legs pumping as she glanced over her shoulder. She saw Julian sprinting right behind her, his backpack flopping on his shoulders. Behind him, two men were running with the flashlight. They wore suits, and she saw the gleam of their polished shoes hitting the ground.

Suddenly the hard-packed dirt gave way to a grassy field, and she nearly tripped on a furrow in the earth. David jerked her up, and she bit back a cry as her shoulder burned. “Where are you going?” she gasped.

“Back to the car. It’s across the field.”

The field was strewn with rocks and other things that Reese identified as cow pies by the odor that rose when her sneakers slipped onto something soft. She heard Julian utter a sound of disgust. But the field also seemed to have slowed down the two men, because the flashlight beam was falling back bit by bit.

Abruptly, her sneakers hit bare dirt again. A town car was parked almost directly in front of her, and she jerked David’s hand to drag him out of the way. Julian paused and flipped up his camera. “What are you doing?” she cried.

“Just a sec,” Julian said, sweeping his camera over the license plate.

“Come on!” Reese said, unlocking the doors. Julian spun around and sprinted for the car just as the two men reached the edge of the field. They all piled inside, and Reese punched the ignition button. The wheels scratched in the dirt as she accelerated out of the parking lot, driving as fast as she could.

Are they following us?” Reese asked, pulling off the
ski mask with a crackle of static electricity. She could see headlights in the rearview mirror, but they were so far back, she didn’t know if they were from the town car.

“I don’t know,” David said, twisting in the passenger seat to look behind them.

Julian was in the backseat, his mask pushed up onto his forehead as he scrutinized the video camera. “I got footage of that car. It has a government plate.”

Reese groaned. “We’re screwed.”

“Don’t freak out yet,” Julian said. “Give me the mini camera. I want to see if you got anything from the warehouse.”

Reese pulled it out of her pocket and held it over her shoulder. “You can’t see anything. Just a bunch of lumps. But did you
see what that semitruck said? EC and R? What does that stand for?”

“EC and R?” he repeated. “Is that what it was?”

“Yes. I remembered because I just saw those letters. They were on the bugs we found in my house.”

“EC and R is a major defense contractor,” Julian said. “Eberhard, Carlyle and Reed. They’ve handled a ton of the projects rumored to be under way at Area 51.”

Reese glanced at him in the mirror. By the light of the video camera, his face looked haunted. “Why would they have planted those devices in my house?”

Julian drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know. Maybe they just manufactured them and had nothing to do with putting them there.”