few seconds later she was up and running and Noah could hear her again: “Fucking flashbang!”
He stumbled to his feet, his eyes still painful from the light. People screamed and a few writhed on the floor near a pile of clothes that had ignited. Black smoke billowed from the clothing, setting the closest people to coughing, but no one seemed dead. Guards leaped at a young man shouting something lost in the din.
Noah picked up his shoes and slipped outside, where sirens screamed, honing in from nearby streets. The salt-tanged breeze touched him like a benediction.
A flashbang. You could buy a twelve-pack of them on the Internet for fifty bucks, although those weren’t supposed to ignite fires. Whatever that protestor had hoped to accomplish, it was ineffective. Just like this whole dumb blood-donation expedition.
But he had a hundred dollars he hadn’t had this morning, which would buy a few good hits of sugarcane. And in his pocket, his fingers closed involuntarily on the circular alien coin.
MARIANNE
Marianne was surprised at how few areas of the Embassy were restricted.
The BSL4 areas, of course. The aliens’ personal quarters, not very far from the BSL4 labs. But her and Evan’s badges let them roam pretty much everywhere else. Humans rushed past them on their own errands, some nodding in greeting but others too preoccupied to even notice they were there.
“Of course there are doors we don’t even see,” Evan said. “Weird alien cameras we don’t see. Denebs we don’t see. They know where we are, where everyone is, every minute. Dead easy.”
The interior of the Embassy was a strange mixture of materials and styles. Many corridors were exactly what you’d expect in a scientific research facility: unadorned, clean, lined with doors. The walls seemed to be made of something that was a cross between metal and plastic, and did not dent. Walls in the personal quarters and lounges, on the other hand, were often made of something that reminded her of Japanese rice paper, but soundproof. She had the feeling that she could have put her fist through them, but when she actually tried this, the wall only gave slightly, like a very tough piece of plastic. Some of these walls could be slid open, to change the size or shapes of rooms. Still other walls were actually giant screens that played constantly shifting patterns of subtle color. Finally, there were odd small lounges that seemed to have been furnished from upscale mail-order catalogues by someone who thought anything Terran must go with anything else: earth-tone sisal carpeting with a Victorian camelback sofa, Picasso prints with low Moroccan tables inlaid with silver and copper, a Navaho blanket hung on the wall above Japanese zabutons.
Marianne was tired. They’d come to one such sitting area outside the main dining hall, and she sank into an English club chair beside a small table of swooping purple glass. “Evan—do you really believe we are all going to die a year from now?”
“No.” He sat in an adjoining chair, appreciatively patting its wide and upholstered arms. “But only because my mind refuses to entertain the thought of my own death in any meaningful way. Intellectually, though, yes. Or rather, nearly all of us will die.”
“A vaccine to save the rest?”
“No, there is simply not enough time to get all the necessary bits and pieces sorted out. But the Denebs will save some Terrans.”
“How?”
“Take a selected few back with them to that big ship in the sky.”
Immediately she felt stupid that she hadn’t thought of this before. Stupidity gave way to the queasy, jumpy feeling of desperate hope. “Take us Embassy personnel? To continue joint work on the spores?” Her children, somehow she would have to find a way to include Elizabeth, Noah, Ryan and Connie and the baby! But everyone here had family—
“No,” Evan said. “Too many of us. My guess is just the Terran members of their haplogroup. Why else
He stumbled to his feet, his eyes still painful from the light. People screamed and a few writhed on the floor near a pile of clothes that had ignited. Black smoke billowed from the clothing, setting the closest people to coughing, but no one seemed dead. Guards leaped at a young man shouting something lost in the din.
Noah picked up his shoes and slipped outside, where sirens screamed, honing in from nearby streets. The salt-tanged breeze touched him like a benediction.
A flashbang. You could buy a twelve-pack of them on the Internet for fifty bucks, although those weren’t supposed to ignite fires. Whatever that protestor had hoped to accomplish, it was ineffective. Just like this whole dumb blood-donation expedition.
But he had a hundred dollars he hadn’t had this morning, which would buy a few good hits of sugarcane. And in his pocket, his fingers closed involuntarily on the circular alien coin.
MARIANNE
Marianne was surprised at how few areas of the Embassy were restricted.
The BSL4 areas, of course. The aliens’ personal quarters, not very far from the BSL4 labs. But her and Evan’s badges let them roam pretty much everywhere else. Humans rushed past them on their own errands, some nodding in greeting but others too preoccupied to even notice they were there.
“Of course there are doors we don’t even see,” Evan said. “Weird alien cameras we don’t see. Denebs we don’t see. They know where we are, where everyone is, every minute. Dead easy.”
The interior of the Embassy was a strange mixture of materials and styles. Many corridors were exactly what you’d expect in a scientific research facility: unadorned, clean, lined with doors. The walls seemed to be made of something that was a cross between metal and plastic, and did not dent. Walls in the personal quarters and lounges, on the other hand, were often made of something that reminded her of Japanese rice paper, but soundproof. She had the feeling that she could have put her fist through them, but when she actually tried this, the wall only gave slightly, like a very tough piece of plastic. Some of these walls could be slid open, to change the size or shapes of rooms. Still other walls were actually giant screens that played constantly shifting patterns of subtle color. Finally, there were odd small lounges that seemed to have been furnished from upscale mail-order catalogues by someone who thought anything Terran must go with anything else: earth-tone sisal carpeting with a Victorian camelback sofa, Picasso prints with low Moroccan tables inlaid with silver and copper, a Navaho blanket hung on the wall above Japanese zabutons.
Marianne was tired. They’d come to one such sitting area outside the main dining hall, and she sank into an English club chair beside a small table of swooping purple glass. “Evan—do you really believe we are all going to die a year from now?”
“No.” He sat in an adjoining chair, appreciatively patting its wide and upholstered arms. “But only because my mind refuses to entertain the thought of my own death in any meaningful way. Intellectually, though, yes. Or rather, nearly all of us will die.”
“A vaccine to save the rest?”
“No, there is simply not enough time to get all the necessary bits and pieces sorted out. But the Denebs will save some Terrans.”
“How?”
“Take a selected few back with them to that big ship in the sky.”
Immediately she felt stupid that she hadn’t thought of this before. Stupidity gave way to the queasy, jumpy feeling of desperate hope. “Take us Embassy personnel? To continue joint work on the spores?” Her children, somehow she would have to find a way to include Elizabeth, Noah, Ryan and Connie and the baby! But everyone here had family—
“No,” Evan said. “Too many of us. My guess is just the Terran members of their haplogroup. Why else
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