The Second Ship (34 page)

Chapter 77

While school busses weren’t her idea of ideal transportation, after eleven years riding the things, Heather had gotten used to them. In fact, Heather often looked forward to the bus rides home from LAHS, since it gave her quality chat time with Jennifer.

As Heather hopped on the bus for the ride home on this early day in May, the school bus was abuzz with discussions of the upcoming junior-senior prom. Normally only juniors and seniors were allowed to go to the prom, but this year was different. This year the senior class had voted to allow all high school classes to attend the event.

The seniors claimed the decision was an example of how they wanted to establish a fresh spirit of inclusion. That it went along with their senior class motto, “Equality, Inclusiveness, Fraternity, and Sorority for all.” Mark said that if they had only added “World Peace,” they would have achieved the most politically correct motto of all time. Instead, they had to settle for the stupidest.

Heather thought the decision had nothing to do with the senior class motto and everything to do with the utter failure of her junior class’s spring fund drive. In the end, since the junior class funded the prom, it came down to a choice of canceling the senior trip and using that money to pay for the prom, canceling the prom, or charging admission to a larger audience.

Whatever the reason behind the decision, Heather knew she’d just have to put up with a bunch of freshmen and sophomores, without letting it ruin her evening.

“So, have you been invited yet?” asked Jennifer, plopping down beside Heather.

“No, but I’m pretty sure that Raul plans on inviting me this evening. He asked me to come over to his house for a while after school today.”

“Oh, really? You sure he doesn’t just want some help with his homework?”

Heather laughed. “I don’t think so. He said it was important and that he wanted to talk to me in private.”

“What time are you going?”

“Six o’clock, why?”

“Heather! Did you forget that we’re getting together to test out Dad's new barbeque grill at seven? The one our dads are so excited about?”

Heather slapped her palm to her forehead. “I completely forgot. I promised my mom I’d help her get ready, too. I guess I could drop by Raul’s house a couple of hours early. You don’t think he’d mind, do you?”

“Are you kidding me? He’s a guy. He'll love it no matter what time you show up.”

By the time the bus pulled to a stop near their houses, Heather and Jennifer had pretty much covered every aspect of what Heather planned on wearing to the prom, curfews, and other weighty matters.

As for Jennifer, she hadn’t been invited to the prom and didn’t plan on attending in any event. First, there were no boys in which she had any current interest. Second, dancing had never been something that she felt any inclination to learn, and no amount of encouragement or cajoling from Heather had been able to put a dent in her resolve on that matter.

“Well, I have to run. If I’m going to bike over to Raul’s and get back here by five thirty to help Mom, then I’d better get going.”

“Okay. See you then.”

The bike ride to Raul’s house left Heather breathless, although part of it probably had to do with the anticipation of what she was sure was coming. She knew Raul liked her, and as odd as he could be sometimes, she liked him back.

Of course, he might have wanted to talk to her for some other reason than inviting her to her first high school prom. Heather had considered this possibility, but since the odds that she was being invited to the prom were roughly 97.653 percent, her anticipation seemed justified.

Heather pulled her bike up to the steps that led to the overhanging front porch of Raul’s house, dropped the kickstand, and walked up to ring the bell. The three gongs of the doorbell reminded her of the rest of the house. It wasn’t fancy, but gave ample evidence of the meticulous pride that its owners felt. The Spanish curtains in the windows and the beautiful potted geraniums on the porch were stunning.

After several seconds and no response, Heather thought about ringing the bell again, then decided against it. If someone was in the house, they would have heard it.

Odd. There were several cars in the driveway. As far as she knew, the Rodriguez family only owned two cars, and neither of these currently occupied the carport or the driveway. Who did all these other cars belong to, and where were the owners?

Then Heather remembered. This was the afternoon when Raul hosted his regular after-school Bible study group. She didn’t want to interrupt, but how long could it take?

Moving around the house toward the small guest quarters where Raul said he conducted his sessions, Heather decided that she would wait outside for a while. After all, she had nothing else to do until it was time to go meet Jennifer.

Heather had never actually been around to the guest quarters, having only been inside Raul’s house on one occasion, an evening when she had been invited over for dinner and a round of dominoes. On that night, Heather had hoped to work her way past the stiff formality, perhaps even suspicion, with which Raul’s parents seemed to regard her. And although the atmosphere in the household had been far from what could be considered welcoming, at least she felt tolerated. Progress was nothing to be sneered at.

The guesthouse was not at all what she expected. It looked like a small chapel, the kind you sometimes saw along the road outside of very small towns; a place where people could stop, light a candle, and offer up prayers to the saint of their choosing. At least that’s what Heather imagined people did in those chapels.

The door bore the image of a cross, complete with bleeding Jesus, and the windows were stained glass. Heather walked around the building. The back wall was windowless, but had a single door, its window blackened out.

For some reason, the site of the plain door with that little blacked-out window filled Heather with irrational dread. She knew that her reaction was stupid, so stupid it made her angry. What was wrong with her? Just walking around the building made her as frightened as a little girl climbing down a ladder into the darkness of grandma's cellar, her small hand searching for the pull-cord that dangled from the naked bulb in the ceiling.

Fighting off her anxiety, Heather walked right up to the door and tried to peer through the black glass. It didn’t work. Whoever had painted the window had done much too thorough a job to allow her any view of what lay beyond.

Driven more by anger at her timidity than by curiosity, Heather put her ear to the pane and listened. Nothing. That, in itself, was odd. On the other side of the building she had been able to hear the rumble of Raul’s voice just by standing close to the front door.

But from here, no sound at all reached her ears, at least none from inside the house. It must be some separate room, most likely used for storage. Heather ignored the 16.283 percent probability that popped into her mind, reaching instead for the handle and giving it a slow twist.

The door opened so smoothly and silently Heather almost jumped, yet another thing that added to her growing self-anger. Taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, she opened the door all the way and stepped inside.

It took Heather’s eyes several seconds to adjust from the bright sunshine outside to the dimly lit room. Hardly bigger than her mother’s walk-in closet, the room was empty, except for a raised trapdoor in the very center of the floor. Through that opening, she could see a steep set of steps leading down.

“Hello?” Heather’s voice sounded oddly muffled in the room. She stepped to the edge of the opening and leaned down. “Hello? Anyone home?”

A lone switch occupied the wall just two steps down, and Heather moved to where she could reach it. At first she thought the lightbulb must be out. Then a gradual flickering, characteristic of fluorescent lamps, gave way to such brightness that she once again found herself momentarily blinded.

As her vision returned, Heather climbed down the remaining stairs into a room so white that the walls seemed to glow as brightly as the fluorescent casings that lined the ceiling.

A solitary bed occupied the center of the room, the type found in hospitals, with stainless-steel railings along both sides and adjustable sections that allowed the operator to raise or lower the back or legs. Beside the bed, a tall, stainless-steel stand held an empty intravenous fluid bag. Just beyond that, the walls were lined with a combination of instruments, a stainless-steel double sink, tables with computers and equipment, and lots of closed metal cabinets. There was also an old refrigerator with rounded corners, reminiscent of one in a fifties sitcom.

This must be the room where Dr. and Mrs. Rodriguez took care of Raul after taking him out of the hospital. But that didn’t make any sense. Raul had told her that they had cared for him in his bedroom during all those weeks after everyone else had given up hope. His mother had been determined to keep him comfortable as she placed all her faith in God to heal her only son. No, this place had some other purpose. It seemed more like a laboratory, something straight out of an old B movie.

Heather moved to the row of tables loaded with the computers and instruments. Everything was off, and she had no intention of touching anything electronic for fear of breaking something. She turned to the first set of cabinets. The lower ones held cleaning supplies and chemicals, while the topmost contained beakers, test tubes, glass stirring rods, and gas torches.

The refrigerator door opened with a slight squeal, as if reluctant to reveal its contents. Inside, a set of test tubes stood arrayed in racks, the tops plugged with rubber stoppers. Heather reached in and carefully withdrew one of the test tubes, holding it up so that the light passed through its interior.

It held a gray liquid with the consistency of thin pudding. At first she thought that the goo pulsed of its own accord, but she put this down to her hands shaking from adrenaline overload. What in the world was she thinking snooping around like this?

Returning the test tube to the refrigerator and closing the door, her gaze shifted to the computer sitting atop the small table in the corner, a swivel chair pushed back as if its last occupant had departed in a hurry. The login screen drew her attention, a familiar LANL logo along with a username “RodriguezE” and an empty slot for a password.

Heather glanced back over her shoulder. Nothing. She was completely alone in the room. Despite a growing desire to get the hell out of there, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to see what was on that computer, that it held the key to what was going on in this hidden lab.

Ignoring her earlier decision not to touch the electronics, Heather took a seat in the chair and slid it up in front of the computer display. What would Dr. Rodriguez use as a password?

Heather had once browsed through a data security pamphlet her father had brought home from the lab, and it had spelled out the laboratory password requirements—a minimum of ten characters including at least one capital letter, one number, and a special character such as a period.

Her dad and Mr. Smythe had laughed about the new policy over a game of bridge, something about how the government liked to lower the cone of silence, creating policies that made it impossible for people to remember their own passwords unless they wrote them down or used memory tricks that actually made the systems less secure.

Heather focused, letting her mind play out the possibilities. The likelihood that Dr. Rodriguez had written the password down shrank in comparison to other approaches. From what she had observed, Raul dominated his thoughts.

For a harried scientist, annoyed by the new security rules, the special character would be the first one on the keyboard, “!”—or “bang,” as it was commonly known among hackers—most likely appended to the end of the sequence. As her savant mind worked the problem, a sequence of likely answers presented themselves, and the second of these got her in. Raul—birthday—bang.

As hard as her heart pounded in her chest, Heather barely paused to congratulate herself. A rapid scan of the files on the hard drive drew her attention to a folder named “Nano-Test-Subjects” and its two sub-folders “Carlton Williams” and “Raul Rodriguez.” Each folder contained a large number of spreadsheet data files as well as documents that appeared to contain detailed notes on test procedures and results. Without bothering to read any of the contents, Heather removed her PDA from her pocket, slid the connector into the USB slot on the front of the computer, and began copying the folders. Exactly eighty-seven seconds later, she disconnected the portable device and re-engaged the screen lock on Dr. Rodriguez’s computer.

As she started to stand, a large hand closed across her face, covering both her mouth and nose with a soft, moist cloth. Her surprised inhalation sucked a vaguely familiar smell deep into her lungs. A desire to fight back surged through her mind, but never quite made it to her rubber limbs. Through the rapidly narrowing straw of her vision, she saw Dr. Ernesto Rodriguez staring down at her with sad eyes.

“Young lady, I’m sorry you had to find this.”

Indeed, as he strapped her down to the metal bed, the sorrow that shone in his damp eyes looked real. If Heather could have remained conscious, she thought that she probably could have felt pity for the man. Probably. 52.163 percent.