Genomorph

Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49

Amanda Breton joined them that night for dinner, as did Matt Branch and Chief Wright. Brandi gave them all hugs and thanked them for their help. She was delighted to see that Admiral Hammerstein was there was well, and after getting a bear hug from him she turned and pulled Melissa forward.

“Admiral Hammerstein, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Melissa Barlowe,” Brandi said, her face lit by a big smile.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Miss Barlowe,” The Admiral said.

Melissa stepped forward and gave him a hug as well. “Please call me Melissa, Admiral, and the pleasure is all mine. Brandi has told me so much about you.”

Brandi excused herself and stepped over to speak to Matt Branch. “I understand we have you to thank for our clothes being here.”

“I had Jennings and Talbot grab everything,” he admitted. “Oh and they turned your crock pot off too.”

“Damn I knew I forgot something!”

Matt laughed, “Actually I’m afraid they tossed it in the garbage. There wasn’t time to clean it and they figured it would be pretty ripe by the time you got back.”

They sat down to a marvelous dinner which Gretchen had prepared. Whatever her past, she was certainly a magician in the kitchen and seemed to truly love preparing lavish meals.

They kept the conversation casual during the meal. Brandi did notice that Melissa had already inherited her appetite as she attacked a huge plate of food enthusiastically. At one point she saw Brandi watching her and burst into giggles.

“I believe its time you all learned the history of the organization you are fighting,” Amanda said as Gretchen began clearing the table. “Even Michael does not the whole story.”

“And you do?” Brandi asked.

“Of course, dear,” Amanda smiled. “You see, I started it.”

*****

After dinner they retired to the parlor. Gretchen wheeled in a liquor cart and then closed the doors behind her as she left. Admiral Hammerstein played bartender, and then they settled in to listen to Amanda tell her story.

“First of all, forget Roswell and any other UFO stories you may have heard.” Amanda said. “Most of them are just disinformation spread to draw attention away from the truth. The first hard evidence of alien visitation of the earth was found in Germany at the end of World War Two. It was a cache of Forerunner technology that had been uncovered by the Nazi’s, a very small cache, but it was obvious that the objects were not from this world.

“I was twenty-two at the time, and had been part of the Office for Strategic Services for four years. You see when I turned eighteen I volunteered to aid the war effort. My family had lived in Germany for many years. My father was an American diplomat; my mother a native German. We moved back to the United States in nineteen thirty-nine, but I had spent my entire life until then in Germany, so of course I spoke fluent German. I was initially tasked with translating intercepts, but I soon demonstrated an aptitude for ‘reading between the lines’ and was moved into a higher security clearance. At the end of the war I was with a group that was looking for evidence of Germany’s atomic bomb program. What we found instead was the cache of artifacts.”

Brandi watched carefully as Amanda paused, sipping her cognac. There was something she was not telling them. It was very hard to read; far harder than it usually was, but it was there. Still, she did not detect that there was any malicious intent; just that Amanda was withholding something.

Amanda looked at Brandi and smiled as she continued.

“The artifacts were brought back to the states and we began searching for evidence of more caches. It was decided to keep the artifacts a tightly guarded secret. The initial team that found them was formed into a new, secret department within the newly formed Central Intelligence Group, which a year later would be renamed the Central Intelligence Agency.

“We were small at the start, and so I quickly rose in the ranks of the department, and four years later I was placed in charge. I had twelve people working under me, mostly researchers and three field investigators…the original ‘Men in Black’, though they tended to wear grey suits in those days. I realized there was great potential in this alien technology, and also that it needed to be separated from the rest of the intelligence community, which was entirely oriented by then to a cold war mentality. In nineteen fifty, President Truman created the organization; it was given no name and officially did not exist, but that very anonymity gave us a great deal of latitude in operations…and a great deal of power.”

“So ‘The Man’ was originally ‘The Woman’,” Brandi smiled, though she was fidgeting a bit nervously.

Amanda smiled as well, “Yes you could say that, though I preferred to be a bit less enigmatic than that.”

Amanda turned to Gretchen, who stood by the door, and said, “Would you get an ashtray for Brandi and Melissa, Gretchen dear?”

Gretchen disappeared and returned a moment later with a lead crystal ashtray which she set on the table before the two young women.

“Thank you,” Brandi said as she took out her cigarettes.

“I would say it’s a very bad habit that you should give up, as I did years ago,” Amanda said. “But then that is not really a problem for either of you now.”

“At any rate, where was I,” Amanda continued. “Ah yes, well, as the organization began gathering information, we quickly grew. We were able to provide the majority of our own funding, just as the movie said, through a few well placed patents and dummy corporations. They were nothing as dramatic as Velcro or compact disks, mostly some basic chemical processes which provided the basis for many other products.

“As the UFO hysteria began, we used that to draw attention away from our activities. In fact, the Roswell incident was used to cover up a cache discovered in another area. Then in October of nineteen fifty-one, a nuclear test, part of Operation Buster, revealed a substantial anomaly in the Nevada desert.”

“The lab,” Susan said.

“Yes the lab complex is constructed within a huge chamber that was hollowed out by the Forerunners,” Amanda confirmed. “To date it is the largest cache ever found. It also made an ideal base of operations for the growing organization.

“Over the next twenty years, we studied the artifacts and even located a few more caches. There were some breakthroughs in technology which were a direct result of these studies, but the major discovery still eluded us, the strange purple plasma that powers most of their equipment.

“The same substance which now powers your body Brandi, and to a lesser extent Melissa’s. It is the key to the Forerunner’s technology, and why the organization wants you so much. You see, they believe you will be able to manipulate this power because it is now a part of you.”

“Then there was a change in…attitudes.” Amanda continued. “There was a decreasing interest in developing the technology for humanitarian purposes and more interest in developing technology to gain the upper hand on the world stage. They wanted weapons.”

“Like me.” Brandi whispered.

“Yes dear, like you. You were to be their crowning achievement. I deeply regret that my connections still within the organization were unable to get word to me of their plans until it was too late, Brandi. I don’t know if I could have spared you this, but .…”

“Please Mrs. Breton, don’t,” Brandi said softly. “I am not sorry, not anymore, for what I have become. I would never have found Melissa if this hadn’t happened. What they did was wrong, evil, but it backfired on them.”

“I know who I am now,” Brandi said, turning adoring eyes towards Melissa. “And now I am complete.”

“I am happy for you Brandi, for both of you,” Amanda said sincerely. “I always knew you would find yourself if given the chance.”

Amanda took another sip of cognac, and then resumed her tale.

“In the seventies, I was eventually forced out of my position as head of the organization. I remained on to help with the research; by this time I had advanced degrees in genetics, biochemistry and biotechnology. My replacement was someone who was far less interested in helping mankind and far more interested in power, though at that time I did not realize his designs were for personal power.”

“The Man?” Brandi asked, half laughing. “Who is this jerk? Doesn’t he even have a name?”

“His name is not important anymore,” Amanda said. “He gave that up along with any tie to humanity long ago, in favor of greed and lust for power.”

Again Brandi had the feeling that there was something more to it, and it was stronger this time than it had been before. There was a significant undercurrent of emotion coming from Amanda.

Again Amanda looked at Brandi and smiled as she continued. Brandi had the distinct impression that Amanda knew she was trying to read her.

“I continued to do research at the lab … I was using some treatments we had developed in the Congo when we first met, Brandi. Then ten years ago I left the organization for good after an accident at the lab.”

“What happened,” Brandi asked, not even needing her enhanced senses to detect a deep sadness in Amanda.

“I lost my son,” Amanda said. “He was assisting me in testing a device … well it did not go as we planned. I left the organization but I kept my contacts. I knew by then that something was not right, but uncovering the secrets required unraveling a web of lies and half-truths.”

“We know his plan now though. He has been subverting individuals in key positions in the intelligence community, the military and the civilian government for years, even members of the media and scientific community. He has created sleepers that have had their minds altered by use of Forerunner artifacts. They are quite unaware of this, but when he is ready he will activate them, and overnight he will have taken over this country in a bloodless and silent coup.”

“One of the devices Amanda acquired over the years is capable of detecting these individuals through the changes made to their brain patterns.” Susan interjected. “We have verified that everyone here is clean, for the most part.”

“For the most part?” Melissa asked. “Susan that doesn’t sound very reassuring.”

“I have sleeper programming in me, inactivated as yet,” Susan said. “Ryan was able to devise a program to disable it without removing it. When they activate me, I will know.”

The conversation paused for a moment as they all took time to absorb what they had been told. For Melissa it was the hardest; the others were used to this to one degree or another, but it was all new to her.

“What am I doing here?” she wondered aloud. “I’m just a music student from LA. All I ever wanted to do was write songs and hear people sing them. I … I don’t belong here in the middle of something like this. I’m not cut out for it.”

Brandi reached over and took her hand and squeezed it. She looked lovingly into her eyes as she said, “It’s time to forge a greater destiny, love. I know you have what it takes; and I’ll be right by your side.”

Brandi rose from the love seat and moved so she could face everyone in the parlor. She had a look of determination on her pretty face as she spoke.

“Do we know where they will send their signal from?” she asked Amanda.

“As I’m sure you suspect, the lab in Nevada,” Amanda said. “They are consolidating all their security personnel there as we speak. They will be ready to act soon.”

“Then I have to get inside for two reasons,” Brandi said. “And I have a plan as to just how to do it. I just need to do one thing to make it work; I don’t want to do it, but it’s the only way.”

“What is it honey?” Susan asked.

Brandi turned and looked at Melissa, their eyes meeting. A look of realization crossed Melissa’s face and her eyes widened. Brandi held her gaze, and at last Melissa smiled nervously and nodded.

“We’re going to let them take Melissa.”

End of Part 4