This was bizarre enough, but it could be only a small part of the picture. The acquisition of a body would mean dissection, organic analysis, and a complete DNA profile. The mystery of whether this was an alien-human hybrid or something altogether different would be solved.

“Okay, people, I want everybody back ten yards. Metal Storms and pistols covering me. I am going to do this.”

“Sir, a Metal Storm’s gonna kill you.”

“If things get outa control. You will not let anything escape our perimeter, is that understood? Even if I am in the red zone.” The hybrids they had come close to so far had proven to be extraordinarily fast. He didn’t think that something that could move like that could be brought down by even a Metal Storm, unless at close range.

Metal Storm was a new kind of infantry weapon that fired a programmable pattern of steel beads faster than the speed of sound. You could rip an entire company apart with a single discharge. The weapon carried up to fifty discharges. Fully tanked with its lethal little beads, it weighed just eighteen pounds.

“Tightest pattern you got,” he said. “Just don’t miss the damn hybrid. We don’t want it running off into that town or eating the farmer or whatever.”

He took a breath, slit the box around the seams, and pulled off the lid.

Eyes closed, motionless, there lay inside what Mark thought was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. It was as white as cream, sleek and svelte, its long hands crossed on its belly. It was covered with a thin film of some sort of cream. Could be cold cream, from the way it looked. Something to keep it moist.

“My God,” Linda said. She came forward, a stethoscope in her hand. “If it’s meant to look like me, they failed.”

Mark blocked her way.

“I have to do this!”

“Guys, I want pistols against its head. If there is the slightest movement, Knots will be behind her, you will pull her away.” Mark drew his own M1911-A1, the modern version of the World War Two vintage .45, still in use by Delta Force. He stepped to the head of the box and put the barrel against the forehead.

“It’s beautiful,” Linda whispered as she applied the stethoscope between the tight breasts.

“They were right about the sex, at least,” Mark said.

“Yeah, funny.”