Before the SUV came to a complete stop, Charles Stantz threw open the passenger door. He stormed across the pavement after the driver slammed on the brakes, resisting the urge to adjust his tie; he refused, even with the current situation, to display so much as the smallest sign of weakness in front of his men.

An unexpected event had occurred, an unfortunate event, but it was being handled. There was no reason for the sour churning in his gut.

He climbed the metal-grating steps and entered the command trailer, closing the door quietly behind him. Before he rounded the corner, he fished a roll of antacids from his inside jacket pocket, peeled back the foil, and dumped four into his mouth. The packaging declared Fruit Flavored!, but they tasted like shit.

Once the antacids were chewed to a paste, Stantz swallowed and walked around the corner.

Banks of monitors of varying sizes lined both walls, and a dozen technicians with headsets were at the controls. Currently, there were at least fifty camera feeds pulled up, including two for each patrolling chopper, more than ten from agents currently in the desert, numerous surveillance cameras from buildings in the search area, and first-person views from the agents operating the roadblock at the California-Nevada border.

The techs spoke in low, droning voices as they received and relayed information.

“Tell me we’ve got something,” Stantz called as he moved down the narrow walkway to the center of the trailer.

“A few impact spots in the dirt, and his shackles, cut into pieces,” Fairborough said, walking over to stand beside Stantz. His sleeves were rolled up and his headset was pulled back off one ear. “Trail’s cold after he crossed the mountains.”

Stantz growled. “How does a seven-foot-tall green alien vanish in a place with nowhere to hide?”

Fairborough didn’t answer; the man was smart enough to know it had been a rhetorical question.

One of the screens caught Stantz’s attention. He pointed at it. “What’s Branson got there?”

The camera feed showed a curvy woman standing near the front of her car. She looked pissed, with her fists balled and her eyebrows angled down over the bridge of her nose.

Stantz grabbed a free headset and pulled it on. “Patch me through to field comms.”

The closest tech nodded, and after a few quick clicks, audio crackled on in Stantz’s headset.

“…pretty damn well, all things considered,” the woman on the camera said.

The technician pulled up her info; Zoey Weston, age twenty-seven, most recently employed as a waitress in Santa Barbara, California. No criminal record.

“Agent Branson,” Stantz said, “does that civilian have information on the Fox?”

The codename — Fox — was at once fitting and frustrating; Specimen Ten was cunning and dangerous, as four dead operatives now evidenced, but the naming scheme seemed ridiculously cliché and unimaginative. If the Organization wanted to move into the future, it would need to shed the trappings of the past.

Branson’s camera angle tilted slightly.

“Negative. She’s clear. Just got a nasty attitude.”

“Then move her along. Our only concern is tracking down the Fox, understood?”

“Copy.”

Stantz tugged the headset down around his neck and returned his attention to Fairborough. “I want all lines of communication monitored.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve already got people back at base combing social media and cell phone traffic. Anyone so much as mentions something weird, we’ll know about it.”

Stantz’s phone vibrated. He tugged it off his belt and glanced at the screen. “Shit,” he muttered.

He yanked off the headset, tossed it down, and hurried outside, pressing Accept as he descended the steps. He lifted the phone to his ear.

“Director,” he said, tongue suddenly like sandpaper.

“Charlie, tell me you have this under control.”

“We’re regaining control, sir.”

“Not good enough, damnit! Do you understand the resources we’re pulling to fix this fuck-up? We don’t need any elected officials asking questions, whether it’s about your Fox or our sudden upswing in expenditures. Those bastards only care about saving money if they feel like they had no say in spending it, and they sure as hell don’t have a say right now. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I’ll bring this to a quick resolution, sir.”

“The public cannot find out about this thing, Charlie. We have enough BS out there to muck up the water, but this one is too much. You do what you need to do to fix this. Even if that means putting your lost animal down.”

Stantz clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together. “Yes, sir.”

When the call disconnected, he stuffed his phone back into its case and paced over the hard pack in front of the trailer.

He’d busted his ass for fifteen years to get to his current position, and his work with the group of aliens who’d crash-landed on Earth had yielded real results that government researchers and scientists would eventually put to good use. One day, he’d be recognized as the man who’d enabled America to move into a new age through his dedication. Few of the others were as willing to get their hands dirty. He’d been doing that dirty work with these aliens for four years.

Stantz wasn’t about to let his life’s work be swept aside because of some short-sighted bureaucrat. Specimen Ten was the last of its kind on Earth, and Stantz would have it back. Budgets and politicians were of no importance; this was about uplifting the human race, about bringing them to the next level of evolution. Anyone who couldn’t see that was little more than an obstacle to be bypassed or destroyed.

He stalked into the command trailer and pulled on a headset.

“Call in some more hounds, gentlemen,” he ordered. “We have a Fox to hunt. We’re going to flush it out of this desert and throw it back in its cage.”