Intrusion Ch. 03

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in getting this ready; I'm finding myself more busy than I expected. Also, there's no real sex in this chapter, just some references, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait until Chapter 4 for that.

*****

While Nalini and Richard tried to rouse the neighbour, Rebecca let herself into the victim's house, with Kate following curiously behind. It was a fairly typical two-story detached building with a garden out back; the sort that she would have expected to find further out in suburbia rather than this close into the town centre. Possibly the position at the top of the slope and close to the park had something to do with that.

"So," said Kate, "we're looking for whatever landed in the trees?"

"Pretty much," replied Rebecca, "although anything else out of the ordinary will do." She looked about, "so this is probably where he collapsed," she indicated the landline phone knocked to the floor, where it ended up under the table after the paramedics had finished.

They were standing in a hallway with three doors leading off it and a stairway at one side. The first door revealed a living room with a sofa, TV, and a collection of uninspiring CDs and blue-rays. The owner was clearly a bachelor, and doing well enough with a house this size to himself. He hadn't looked a particularly young man, so maybe he was divorced. Anyway, nothing looked odd, except...

Rebecca felt an odd tingle that she couldn't quite identify. A sort of emotional frisson that she couldn't quite put down to her curiosity about what they might find. Something physical, yet just on the border of perceptibility. She glanced across at Kate, but if the other woman felt anything, she didn't give any sign. Rebecca reflected that, since Kate was still in her army uniform, it was perhaps as well that the neighbour had taken so long to get to the door that she hadn't seen them entering. The apparent involvement of the military might have attracted attention.

"Civvies might be an idea in future," she said, "people might remember those clothes."

Kate looked pointedly at Rebecca's Star Wars T-shirt, which she had to admit probably didn't look like something government officers normally wore on duty. But all she said was, "point noted. This isn't exactly what I expected on my first day."

"Or any day, really, I'm guessing," agreed the scientific advisor as she headed back into the hallway.

The next door she tried was the kitchen, which she guessed was pretty clean for a bachelor pad. And then...

It was immediately noticeable, sitting on a plain table in the middle of the room. A tingling sensation ran through her body as she approached, unmistakably a real effect this time. It wasn't unpleasant, but the thing was giving off... what, static electricity, maybe? Some sort of ionisation effect in the air? She paused to pull on a pair of nitrile gloves from the pack at her side and made to go closer.

"Are you sure this is safe?" asked Kate.

"No, but we can't just leave it here. But stay over by the door, just in case." She pulled out a plastic specimen bag and a metal probe.

The thing had once been a metal sphere, just over a foot across, consistent with the size of the impact site. The metal was dull grey, with a few darker markings on the surface here and there. But they were difficult to make out because the thing had opened up, five regularly spaced panels now splayed out around a curved disc at the base. This meant that the outer surface was now mostly lying against the table.

The inner surface of the former sphere had some sort of honeycomb structure to it, looking more delicate than the outside. It was hollow, but slathered in a thick layer of yellowish-green gelatinous material, some of which had dripped out onto the table. There was nothing else around it, and the whole thing seemed to be entirely inert. Rebecca gingerly reached out to take a sample of the goo.

"Woah!" she said, suddenly straightening up.

As soon as the probe had touched the material, she had felt a sudden and inexplicable surge of sexual desire. Warmth spread throughout her body, concentrating itself in her crotch, and her nipples hardened, sensitive against the material of her bra. She turned, flushed, and looked across at Kate.

The army officer's eyes were wide, and she gulped, taking a deep breath. No need to ask if she had felt it too, then. Which meant that it wasn't just a proximity effect, but a response to her actions.

"That was unexpected," said Rebecca, after a moment's awkward silence.

"How...?"

"And why? I have no idea, but we just have to get ourselves a sample of some of that!" She turned back, and managed to scoop a sample of some of the stuff into the bag, before realising how what she'd just said could be interpreted. "I mean, for scientific research... analysis... we have to find out what..." she was gabbling, her bodily sensations confusing her thoughts, "I don't mean that I'd... it's not that kind of... I mean, I am straight... uh..."

"I had assumed you were," said Kate, drily.

"Right. Well, we still have to do something with this whatever-it-is. I guess we're lucky that nobody else looked in this room when the paramedics came."

It was only later that it dawned on her that Kate hadn't actually said "me too". But perhaps she was reading too much into that.

***

The neighbour, when she had eventually answered the door, looked a little flustered, and appeared to have got up straight out of bed, which seemed odd at this time of the day. She was a middle-aged woman, who seemed genuinely concerned about what had happened, at least once she'd regained her composure. Nalini wondered what she had been doing that she was embarrassed about, but didn't see any reason to press the point.

Mrs. Corbett was, in fact, able to provide them with little more information than they already had. The only strange thing she had seen was what she described as a 'metal football' in a room at the back of the house, but they decided not to draw her attention too much to that, since Rebecca and Kate had, by that point, likely already found whatever it was.

The dog, so far as Nalini could tell, was perfectly normal. It had apparently been distressed at its owner's plight, but that was understandable enough, and now it just seemed hopeful that he'd return. They were not, of course, able to provide any reassurance on that front, although at least the victim should now be on his way to the specialist unit in London.

They met up with Helen again by the car, just as she got off the phone to somebody. She looked irritated as she popped the phone back in her pocket, but Nalini decided it was probably better not to ask.

Just then, Kate and Rebecca came back out of the victim's house, carrying a large object in a sports bag. Nalini explained about the 'metal football'.

"She just described it as a ball?" asked Rebecca, who seemed strangely flushed all of a sudden, "that's interesting. It means that it must have opened up after she left. That's not what I was expecting." Nalini raised an eyebrow, but the science advisor didn't elaborate. "Let's just get this into the boot, and we can get it properly analysed."

Just as they were doing so, however, the bag, and whatever it was carrying, bumped into the side of the car. The effect was as immediate as it was surprising.

Nalini took a sharp intake of breath, her eyes involuntarily fluttering shut for a moment and her hands clenching as the feeling washed over her. She glanced around at the others, wondering if they'd felt the same thing. Richard had was trying to look as if he had just randomly decided to place his hands in front of his groin area, shielding it from the women's view, while Helen had gone quite red. Not just her, then.

"Yeah, it does that," said Rebecca, apologetically, "I didn't really know how to warn you."

"I hope the car is going to provide some sort of shielding," said Helen, "it's bound to bump around a little."

"I have no idea. But right now, I don't see that we have an alternative."

"It might be a biohazard," pointed out Nalini, "considering what it's probably already done."

"We can't just leave it here. When we get back, I'll have it properly locked up and sent across to Porton Down. But we don't have the facilities to do more than that now, and anything it's going to do it's probably already done. It's opened up since the initial 'attack', so whatever was inside it isn't here any more."

"There wasn't any sign of anything having left," said Kate, "no footprints in the slime, or anything."

"Slime?"

"That was what was inside it," confirmed Rebecca, "no idea what it is."

"As you say, there's nothing else we can do now," said Helen, "we'll get this thing out of here as quickly as we can. Perhaps I can get a police escort to meet us en route, which should get us through London quicker, if nothing else. And, yes, I want that thing at Porton Down, not back at the office."

"Richard, Nalini, can you check the other neighbours? See if anybody else knows anything. They probably won't, those that are in at this time of day, but, just in case they do, I don't want to leave it to the local plods. Join us back when you can."

Helen proved to be correct; most of the houses were currently empty. The only other person they got to speak to along the street proper was a teenager laid up at home with a broken leg. As was apparent from the sounds they could hear coming through the door before they suddenly shut off and he came to answer it, he had been spending his morning in the front room watching porn.

He wasn't any help, being sullen and uncommunicative, and evidently just wanting to get back to what he'd been watching. But it probably explained why the first neighbour had been flustered when they had initially spoken to her.

"The effect has to have been radiating," she said to Richard, "hence Mrs. Corbett over there suddenly going back to bed in the middle of the day."

"But it's not doing anything now."

"Which is good, because it probably means it's fading. I don't think we interrupted Mrs. Corbett in flagrante, as it were... she just didn't want to explain why she'd been in bed. And the teenager... well, at his age, the effect may be longer lasting. It probably doesn't take much, in his case."

"Could be," he agreed grudgingly, "and thinking about it, even I am definitely picking up some flowers for Sylvia on the way home tonight."

Nalini grinned in response to that. She had only met Richard's wife a couple of times, and she seemed a pleasant, quiet woman, who she suspected had quite a flair for peaceful domesticity. Hopefully, she'd have an enjoyable night.

Nalini herself, despite her parents' nagging, was still decidedly single. Which, with Rebecca having recently broken up with her boyfriend, left all three of the women at Room 42 without a current partner. Oh, there, was Kate as well now, wasn't there? Well, who knew about her?

She rather suspected that her parents just wanted a grandchild, although they also seemed more excited about the prospect of a wedding, with all its associated razzamatazz, then she was. But, unfortunately, there hadn't been anyone since Sandeep a couple of years back, and that had never got very far. Heck, even her vibrator had been a wasted purchase, considering the small number of times that she'd used it.

"Let's check out those flats at the end of the street," she said, "and then we can go home. Maybe somebody saw something before they started getting sex-addled."

The third flat they tried turned out to have someone in. Neither Richard nor Nalini were surprised when they took their time getting to the door. No change there, then, and pretty much what they had expected, considering how close the flats were to the victim's home.

"Hello...?" said a fair-haired man in his twenties, answering the door wearing a dressing gown and a sheen of sweat at odds with the weather.

Richard showed him his warrant card, "who am I speaking to?"

"Liam Foster." A young woman, dressed in what appeared to be a man's over-sized T-shirt and nothing else, peered over his shoulder. The man seemed surprised and a little embarrassed at her having followed him to the door.

"And you, miss?"

"Lucy Okoko. What's this about?"

"We're just wondering if you've seen anything unusual in the neighbourhood this morning. It might not even seem something significant, but was just a bit odd, a bit out of the ordinary?"

"No, nothing. We were kind of busy. Is that all?"

"Do you know the man at Number 23? Have you seen him at all this morning?"

She shook her head, but the man was frowning, looking as if he was unsure as to whether to say something or not.

"And you, sir?" prompted Richard.

"I know who you mean, but I haven't seen him today. We've hardly spoken; I don't know his name or anything."

"And is there anything else? Anything at all, no matter how minor?"

"Sorry," said the woman, eager to get back to whatever they'd been doing. As if that needed a diagram.

"Actually..." said Liam, holding up his arm as his girlfriend made to close the door, "there was one strange thing..."

***

Whether it was the insulation provided by the boot of the car, unusually clear driving down the A2, or simply the passage of time, the sphere no longer seemed to be having a significant effect on the team. Rebecca thought she could still feel that odd, slightly tingly sensation she had felt on first entering the house, but it was low level enough that it might have just been her imagination.

They were on the outskirts of Bexleyheath when the army truck caught up them and they transferred the sphere to Dstl custody to be taken to Porton Down for analysis. Rebecca still had the sample of goo that she had taken, and hoped that she might at least be able to do something with that at Room 42's own facilities. Realistically, though, she was going to have to rely on the army boffins - and they'd probably be more interested in the sphere itself than its contents.

As they got back into the car to brave the traffic through London, however, she couldn't help but notice that Helen seemed to be irritated about something. She had been all morning, ever since the initial call came through, and there was clearly something preying on her mind.

She glanced across at Kate as Helen began drumming her fingers on the steering wheel when they were stopped at a set of traffic lights. The army officer gave a tiny shrug, evidently noticing the same thing, but not yet comfortable enough with where she stood in the organisation to actually question her new boss.

Rebecca felt no such compunction. "Is there a problem?" she asked leaning forward.

"Huh?" Helen looked a little startled lost in her thoughts, and then was interrupted further when the lights turned back to green, and they were off again.

A short while later, though, she said, "it's the Americans."

"Not to sound like Brendan, but what have they done this time?"

Helen sighed, "the initial report came in from them. They picked up the incoming object - this sphere of ours, presumably, at NORAD, and tracked it coming in. Our radar picked it up from there, and of course, we eventually had the police report to pinpoint the sight, but they spotted it first."

"I'm surprised they could see it, considering the size of it. Was it giving off some sort of signal?"

"Brendan's looking into that," she glanced backward briefly, "you might want to help him out, Kate, when we get back."

The army officer agreed, but Rebecca felt that there had to be more to it than the Americans beating them to the punch. The US did have better facilities for that sort of thing after all. "So what's the problem?" she asked.

"They've assigned some stupid agent to look into it, since they gave us the head's up. And the damn Ministry have agreed to it. So we're going to have some bloody CIA spook looking over our shoulder. He should be at the office right now."

"And you left him with Brendan? Let's hope he doesn't start World War III. Over how crap their beer is, or something." Rebecca had no particular opinion on the merits, or otherwise, of American beverages, but Brendan could find any excuse to put down their transatlantic cousins. "What's this man's name?"

"No idea. I'm not sure they'd decided who to send when we left, and probably didn't want to update us over an unencrypted line."

It would probably be one of those strange, American names, thought Rebecca. Like 'Chuck', 'Brad'... or 'Donald'. Although, hopefully, given what they now appeared to be investigating, it wouldn't be something like 'Randy Johnson.'

***

"...and while we're at it," they could hear Brendan saying as they approached the office, "baseball is basically just rounders... it's a crap sport."

"Brendan!" said Helen sternly as she entered the room, "you think that cricket is a crap sport. And I very much doubt you have ever watched a football match in your life that someone didn't force you to. Stop baiting the American."

Before he could respond, she turned to the room's other occupant, "I'm Helen Hardwicke," she said, shaking his hand, "I take it you're the CIA man. I'm sorry; they didn't give me your name."

"It's Curtis Vincent, ma'am. Pleased to meet you," he glanced across at Brendan, but evidently decided not to say anything else.

"Perhaps we can talk in my office, Mr. Vincent?"

Considering how annoyed she had been about the US's involvement, Rebecca had to admit that Helen was acting in a very welcoming manner. It was all part of being a manager, although it probably helped that Curtis looked more as if he came from Hollywood than the CIA. Tall, with short sandy hair and blue eyes, he had a smooth face with a chiselled jaw and what was clearly a toned athletic frame under the business suit. He also had, Rebecca couldn't help but notice as he turned away, a tight and muscular ass; it was enough to drive the thoughts of earlier in the day straight out of her mind.

Instead, though, once Helen and the agent were out of earshot, she turned on Brendan. "What is your problem with Americans?" she asked, "it's not as if you don't watch their films and TV all the time. You were even talking favourably about Captain America this morning."

Brendan sighed, looking a little deflated, "it's not really Americans as such that get my goat, it's all their blood agencies. Tromping about the world as if they own the place, boasting about their budgets, acting as if the normal rules don't apply to them because they're the US bloody A. You can't tell me that the CIA aren't full of themselves. Or the rest of their alphabet soup, either."

"Captain America?" asked Kate, suspiciously.

"Nothing important," said Rebecca hurriedly, wondering whether Kate had heard that one before, or had worked it out for herself. She rather hoped it was the latter; it implied at least some degree of shared interests.

"Anyway," said Brendan, "Richard left a message over the secure link a short while ago. He said they may have a lead on this thing we're investigating. A couple of people acting strangely, and something about a witness seeing a flash of light around them... a bit vague, really. But I checked them out on the system, and it seems they took a wad of money out of a cash machine on the high street shortly after they were last seen. After that, nothing, but there wouldn't be if they've got cash."

"Richard seemed to think it was important, so I gave the details to the Kent Police and the Met, but, honestly, I don't know what good it's going to do, unless they went straight home."

Rebecca had to agree; they'd only come to the attention of the police if they did something worthy of notice. And, of course, they could be anywhere by now... a nearby hotel, or in a car half way to Leeds. And it could all be a wild goose chase, and these people knew nothing at all about mysterious alien objects.