Edward Lee - Slither

Nora brought a hand to her mouth in shock.

The monitor was nothing but a clear sheet-like a plastic cover sheet for a term paper, and just as thin. Loren held it up, flapped it around, then rolled it into a tight tube. When he unrolled it again, it still held the perfect image of the sea where the vessel had just lifted off.

"How do you like that?" Loren said cockily. "Boy, that's a really cool monitor, isn't it? I'm sure you could go to Circuit City right now and buy one just like it."

Next, he pointed to the screen rolling the strange markings:

"That ain't no military code," Loren balked. "It's not an encryption. It's fucking Microsoft Word from another planet."

Nora felt tiny looking at the screen and all of its ramifications. An alien language, she thought.

"And to top it all off, we've got these guys in gas masks-who are obviously the crew to that thing we just saw levitate out of the fucking Gulf of Mexico, and they've been running around this island the whole time, instigating what can only be a field test of a genetically created parasite. And we just saw one of those guys put a fucking bomb on a live RTG. What's that tell you, Nora?"

"It tells me that their field test is over," she said with surprising calm, "and now they're getting ready to leave. They know enough about the modem human species to know that if they blow up an RTG, the radiological dispersion will contaminate the island so effectively that our own authorities won't be able to investigate the perimeter closely enough to ever realize that an advanced race from another planet was here doing tests on us in the first place."

"Exactly."

More silence. It was too much to contemplate, and too much to believe even after all they'd seen with their own eyes.

"There's got to be a way we can defuse that bomb," she finally said.

Loren laughed out loud, bug-eyed. "You're kidding me, right? We don't even know what it'll do. Just because it's only the size of a hockey puck doesn't mean much when you consider the technology base of the people who put it there. Nora, it could a millionmegaton bomb."

"Yeah, but it probably isn't," she reasoned. "It's not logical. What's logical is what we just said. They don't want our authorities to know they were even here. So they're going to rupture the RTG core with a small nonnuclear device because they know the U.S. military will simply quarantine the island and believe it was some terrorist cell trying to make a point. I guarantee you, our side will believe that a lot more readily that they'll believe an alien entity came here to do a genetic field test, and then left without a trace."

"Whatever," Loren said in haste. "But there's nothing more we can do except leave right now before all this shit happens and we get turned into dust."

Nora's mind raced. Her eyes were all over the room, along with her thoughts. "Trent wanted to inspect the dead body, but we already know what he found, so I want you to go back to the campsite, and-"

Loren's look of incredulity couldn't have been more glaring. "No, Nora, we go back to the campsite, get Trent, then go to that girl's boat, and get off this powderkeg island."

"You go," she said. "It'll only take a few extra minutes. Get Trent and come back here. Then we'll all go to the boat together."

"Bullshit!" Loren yelled.

"I want to look around here a few more minutes," she insisted. "There might be some way to deactivate that bomb. There might be some tool here or something."

"Some tool! You're crazy! Come on!"

Nora shoved him for the door. "Just go!" she yelled back. "I'm still your boss, remember."

Loren honked laughter. "Big deal! What, you're going to drop my T.A. credits back at Worm School because I refused to help you defuse an alien bomb?"

"1 don't care!" she yelled. She was determined. "Leave without me, if you want. I'll swim back."

"Yeah, Nora, the bull sharks will love that."

"Just get out! I've made up my mind!" She shoved him hard for the door.

"All right, already. Annabelle was right. You've got serious PMS."

"Blow me!"

"I'll go get Trent and come back," he agreed. if I get eaten by the alien worms or abducted by the spacemen, then it'll be on your conscience."

Loren jogged away, shaking his head.

Now Nora could think. She knew her decision was unsafe and stupid, but there was just too much here for a scientist to walk away from. She edged back out into the hall, then quickly walked down to a far room. More of the weird white light bathed her face when she entered.

She froze.

There was no smell, but there was also no mistake that what she now faced was a rotting human corpse, half eaten by a multitude of infant worms. The white male victim lay bloated, as if the slew of dead worms and ova around him had initially been inside his body and then burst out. There must've been thousands of worms and ova composing the morbid pile.

This guy was a test subject, she thought through a wave of revulsion. They abducted him, infected him, and put him in this room to record the results… He must've been dead for several days; she knew just by looking that the corpse had entered the stage of decomposition known as karyolysis, where the molecular lipids that form body fat begin to liquefy, and now the corpse and dead worms alike all lay suspended in that liquefaction: a congealed mass of organic rot. It was repulsive to look at but…

I should be gagging right now, she knew.

Why was there no death stench in the room?

Very slowly, Nora reached forward into the air, then-

What the hell is that?

Her finger came into contact with something, a barrier. She opened her hand against it, could feel it as surely as she'd ever felt anything in her life. It felt like her hand was pressing against a pane of glass.

But she couldn't see it. No streaks, no shine, no reflection of herself.

A quarantine barrier, she thought, mystified. When she tapped it with her fingernail, the sound ticked exactly like glass. It's solid, and obviously nonpermeableThen she rapped it with her knuckles.

Clunk, clunk, clunk.

– and totally invisible.

She left the room, numb now from all of the impossibilities she'd witnessed. Of course, their technologies would vastly surpass that of her own race. It's not so impossible when you think about it… The realization summoned worse thoughts, though.

What other technologies might be waiting?

She was about to enter another room when she heard…

Rattling?

Loren had closed the door at the end of the hall when he'd left, but now-

Shit!

The door was opening.

Nora ducked back into the first room just as a wedge of sunlight widened on the floor. It must be that guy we saw at the RTG! Nora's heart revved; her gaze tore back and forth for a place to hide, but just when she realized there was nothing, the knob on the door began to turn.

She ducked back into the uniform room during the same second that the door opened.

She held her breath, watching through the crack…

The figure entered, a stark shadow in the black suit and hood. No facial features could be detected beneath the mask's tinted visor. He turned, his back now to Nora, and he seemed to be inspecting the items on the shelf.

Nora glanced to one of the belts hanging on the wall next to her; without thinking, she pulled out a strange flanged tool. She couldn't imagine what purpose it served but it did feel like metal…

If 1 could only hit that bastard in the head…

But her chance was gone before she'd finished thinking the thought. If she jumped out now with the tool, he'd scarcely even be surprised.