Invasion

"Oh, please!" Sheila said impatiently. "We're in the middle of the damned desert. Without the paved road this is more Godforsaken than the area around that deserted gas station. Is this some kind of joke?"

"No joke," Harlan said. "Be patient! I'm giving you all a chance to help save the human race."

Sheila glanced over at Pitt, but his attention was glued to the track. Sheila sighed loudly. Just when she'd started feeling good about Harlan, it was becoming apparent he was taking them on a wild-goose chase. There was no lab out there in the desert. The whole situation was absurd.

"Okay," Harlan said. "Stop up there next to that flowering cactus."

Pitt did as he was told. He pulled on the brake and cut the engine.

"All right," Harlan said. "Everybody out." He opened the slider and stepped out onto the sand. Jonathan followed at his heels.

"Come on," Harlan encouraged the others.

Sheila and Pitt rolled their eyes for each other's benefit. They were parked in the middle of the desert. Except for a few scattered boulders, a handful of cacti, and some low rolling sand hills, there was nothing around them.

Harlan had walked about twenty feet away before turning back. He was surprised no one was following him. Jonathan had gotten out of the van, but since the others hadn't, he'd hesitated.

"For chrissake!" Harlan complained. "What d'ya need, a special invitation?"

Sheila sighed and alighted from the vehicle. Pitt followed suit. Then all three trudged after Harlan, who was striking out into nowhere land.

Sheila wiped her brow. "I don't know what to make of this," she whispered. "One minute this guy seems like a godsend, the next like a crackpot. And on top of that it's hotter than Hades."

Harlan stopped and waited for the others to catch up to him. He pointed down to the ground and said: "Welcome to the Washburn-Kraft Biological Warfare Reaction Laboratory."

Before anyone could respond to this preposterous statement, Harlan bent down and grasped a camouflaged ring. He pulled up and a circular portion of the desert floor lifted up. Beneath was a round opening lined with stainless steel. Just the tip of a ladder was visible.

Harlan made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "This whole area around here all the way to within a few miles of Paswell is honeycombed with underground facilities. It was supposed to be a big secret, but the Native Americans knew about it."

"It's an operational lab?" Sheila questioned. This indeed was too good to be true.

"It had been mothballed in kind of suspended animation," Harlan said. "It was built back in the height of the cold war but then deemed superfluous when the threat of germ warfare coming to the USA diminished. Except for a few bureaucrats who kept the thing stocked, it was pretty much forgotten about; at least that's my take on the situation. Anyway, after all this trouble started, I got into it and cranked it up to speed. So to answer your question: yes, it is an operational lab."

"And this is the entrance?" Sheila questioned. She leaned out over the rim of the opening and looked down. There were lights below. The ladder went straight down about thirty feet.

"No, this is an emergency exit plus an air vent," Harlan said. "The real entrance is closer to Paswell, but I'm afraid to use that lest I be seen by some of my former patients."

"Can we go inside?" Sheila asked.

"Hey, that's what we're here for," Harlan said. "But before a tour I want to cover the van with a camouflage tarp."

They all climbed down the ladder to a white, high-tech corridor illuminated by banks of fluorescent lights. From a storage locker at the base of the ladder, Harlan got out the tarp he'd mentioned. Pitt returned topside with Harlan to give him a hand.

"Pretty cool," Jonathan said to Sheila while they waited. The corridor seemed to stretch off in either direction to infinity.

"Better than cool," Sheila said. "It's a godsend. And to think it was built to help thwart a germ-warfare attack by the Russians and instead is to be used to do the same thing for aliens is truly ironic."

When Harlan and Pitt returned back down, Harlan led them off in what he said was a northerly direction.

"It will take you a while to orient yourselves," he said. "Until then I recommend you stick together."

"Where are the people that kept this place up?" Sheila asked.

"They came in shifts like the guys that used to man the underground missile silos," Harlan said. "But after they got infected, I guess they either forgot about it or went off someplace. The talk in Paswell was that a lot of people were going to Santa Fe for some reason. Anyway they're not around, and by now I don't expect them."

They came to an air lock. Harlan opened it and had everybody climb into a chamber. Inside the chamber were showers and blue jump suits. Harlan closed the door, then twisted some dials. Air was heard entering the lock.