foaming at the mouth and eyes that Harlan had experienced as they'd left the underground laboratory. Harlan had been ecstatic, taking Cassy's temporary misery as further evidence of the efficacy of the 'rhino-cure,' as he called it.
Skirting the center of Santa Fe, they followed Cassy's directions and drove directly to the Institute for a New Beginning. At this time of night the outer gate was brightly illuminated with flood lights. The daily protesters were gone, but there was a significant number of infected people leaving the grounds.
Harlan pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. He leaned forward and surveyed the scene. 'Where's the mansion?' he asked.
En route Cassy had explained to everyone everything she'd been able to remember about the institute's layout particularly the fact that the Gateway was located in the ballroom on the first floor to the right of the front entrance.
'The main building is behind that line of trees,' Cassy said. 'You can't see it from here.'
'Which way did the ballroom windows face?' Harlan asked.
'I believe to the back of the house,' Cassy said. 'But I'm not positive because they had been boarded up.'
'So much for the idea of breaking through the windows,' Harlan said.
'Considering what the Gateway is supposed to do,' Pitt said, 'it must use a lot of energy, and that's got to be electric. Maybe we could unplug it.'
'A wonderfully droll suggestion,' Harlan quipped. 'But to transport aliens through time and space I can't imagine they'll be relying on the same energy as we use to power toasters. Seeing what a single, relatively tiny black disc can do, think of what a whole bunch of them might accomplish if they were working in concert.'
'It was just an idea,' Pitt said. He felt stupid and decided to keep his thoughts to himself.
'How far is the mansion from the gate?' Sheila asked.
'Quite a ways,' Cassy said. 'A couple of hundred yards or more. The driveway goes through trees first and then crosses a stretch of wide-open lawn.'
'Well, I think that's our first problem,' Sheila said. 'We have to get to the house if we're going to do anything.'
'Good point,' Harlan said.
'What about sneaking over the fence somewhere in the back?' Jonathan said. 'There are lights here at the gate but I don't see others elsewhere.'
'There are big dogs patrolling the grounds,' Cassy said. 'They're infected just like the people, and they work together. I'm afraid trying to approach the house across the lawn would be dangerous.'
Suddenly the night sky above the trees lit up with undulating bands of energy that gave the impression of the northern lights. They formed a sphere and began expanding and contracting, reminiscent of an organism breathing. But each successive expansion was larger so the phenomenon was growing by the second.
'Uh oh,' Sheila said. 'I have a feeling we're too late. It's starting.'
'All right, everybody out of the car!' Harlan commanded.
'What do you mean?' Sheila questioned.
'I want everybody out,' Harlan said. 'I'm going to do something impulsive. I'm going to drive in there and run this car into the ballroom. I can't let this go on.'
'Well, you're not doing it alone,' Sheila said.
'Suit yourself,' Harlan said. 'I don't have time to argue. But the rest of you, out!'
'There's not really any place to go,' Cassy said. She glanced at Pitt and then Jonathan. Their nods told her she was speaking for them. 'I think we're into this thing together.'
'Oh for chrissake!' Harlan complained as he put his Range Rover into low range for off roading. 'Just what the human race needs: an entire car full of goddamn martyrs.' He revved the engine and told everyone to cinch up his seat belt. Harlan yanked his own as tight as he could make it. Then he put on the CD player and selected his favorite: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. He advanced it to a part he especially liked; it was where the kettle drums resound. With the volume at near full blast, he pulled out into the road.
'What are you going to tell the men at the gate?' Sheila yelled.
'I'm going to tell them to eat my dust!' Harlan yelled back.
There was a black-and-white, weighted wooden gate across the driveway. The pedestrian traffic walked around it. Harlan hit it at about forty-five miles per hour and the Rover's bush bars made mincemeat of it. The smiling guards dove out of the way to either side.
Sheila spun around and looked out the back of the car. The guards had recovered and were running after them. Also in pursuit was a pack of wildly barking dogs. Gatekeepers and dogs quickly disappeared as Harlan negotiated an S-curve around some virgin conifers.
The Range Rover rocketed out of the trees. The huge mansion loomed before them in the night. The entire building was glowing, particularly the windows. The undulating bands of light that were rhythmically expanding up into the night sky appeared to be coming from the roof like gigantic flames.
'Aren't you going to slow down a little?' Sheila yelled. The engine was whining like a jet turbine and the kettle drums were pounding. It sounded as if the entire orchestra was inside the car. Sheila reached up and grasped the handle above the passenger-side door to steady herself.
Harlan didn't answer. His expression was one of intense concentration. Up until that moment he'd been steering the vehicle within the confines of the driveway. Now that he had the house in sight, he drove straight toward it across the lawn to avoid the pedestrians. People were streaming from the mansion in single file on the way out of the property.
About a hundred feet from the wide, sweeping steps that led up to the front terrace, Harlan downshifted despite the fact that the engine's RPMs were already close to the red area on the gauge. The car responded by slowing considerably. At the same time significant power was directed to the rear wheels.
'Holy shit!' Jonathan yelled as the distance closed to the front steps. People could be seen diving blindly over the limestone handrails to get away from the three tons of steel hurtling at them.
The Range Rover hit the first step and the front kicked up, launching the entire vehicle into the air. The tires made contact with the earth again at the rear of the front terrace ten feet from the double French door entry. Multipaned side lights surrounded the front door on both sides as well as the top.
Everyone but Harlan squeezed their eyes shut when the collision with the house occurred. There was a muted sound of shattering glass that could be heard above the classical music, but there was surprisingly little effect on the car's forward momentum. Harlan hit the brakes and threw the steering wheel to the right. He was intent on avoiding the grand staircase which was directly ahead.
The car skidded on the black-and-white checkered marble floor, brushed past a large crystal chandelier, and then collided with a marble console table and an interior plastered wall. There was a crunching sound and everyone was thrown against their seat belts. The passenger-side airbag inflated and pressed a startled Sheila back into her seat.
Harlan fought the steering wheel as the car bounced over the crushed table and broken two-by-four studding. The final collision was with a metal and wooden structure draped with electrical cable. The car came to a halt against a steel girder that shattered the windshield, splintering it into a thousand pieces of tempered glass.
Outside the car there was sputtering and sparking as well as a strange mechanical hum that could be felt more than heard over the booming classical music.
'Is everybody okay?' Harlan asked as he disconnected his fingers from the steering wheel. He'd been holding it so tight as to preclude circulation. Both his hands and forearms were stiff. He turned down the volume on the CD player.
Sheila fought with the collapsing airbag. It had abraded her cheek and forearms.
Everyone responded that they had weathered the crash surprisingly well.
Harlan glanced out through the broken front windshield. All he could see were wires and twisted debris. 'Do you think this is the ballroom, Cassy?' he asked.
'I do,' Cassy said.
'Then mission accomplished,' Harlan said. 'With all these wires, it certainly appears as if we've collided with some sort of high-tech apparatus. By the looks of all this sparking, we've done something.'
Since the Range Rover's engine was still running, Harlan put it in reverse and gave it gas. With a good deal of
