I’m working on a story about a rumored eco-accident at the research facility of a powerful and secretive multinational corporation. It’s been covered up so expertly that I can only find the faintest evidence that it ever happened in the first place, just a few traces of what appears to have been a fairly major catastrophic event.

My editor finally agrees to send me out there, and in preparation I look over a listing of the attorneys in the area who specialize in environmental law and am pleasantly surprised to see Katie’s name among them. I’d know she was a lawyer and lived in the state, but had no idea of her speciality or exact location. Evidently she used to work for a large firm but now has her own office.

I make an appointment for the afternoon of my arrival with her secretary, who, of course, doesn’t know me. Katie does, but seems more amused than anything when I turn up. She’s deadly serious about the case, however, and in fact was friends with an EPA official who was dismissed for pursuing the case too vigorously. She even tells me that she believes her own career at her firm was compromised by her association with this man. He gave her the official case file before leaving town and Katie makes me a copy and then suggests we go over to the site itself while there’s still light.

It’s a few miles out and an absolutely surreal sight – there’s a razor topped high security fence surrounding a few city blocks with a modest warehouse in the middle. Outside the fence there’s nothing, just scraggly dirt and rubble amid the outlines of streets and foundations. Katie explains that after the mysterious accident the corporation bought the small village, enclosed part of it, and razed the rest.

We walk past the NO TRESPASSING sign to the fence. What’s visible inside looks weirdly normal – abandoned convenience stores and office buildings, dirty and shabby, but not vandalized or apparently damaged in any way. As I’m taking a soil sample a sedan full of guys in sunglasses and suits pulls up. Without a word we scurry to the car and peel away as they glare at us, one of them ostentatiously writing Katie’s licence number in his notebook.

Wow, that was weird I say.

Katie says. This whole thing is beyond weird.

Now that we’re driving away, our pressing business done, I suddenly realize that here I am, alone with Katie again. I sneak a look at her profile as she drives with that characteristic steely concentration, as striking as ever.

I start to feel self-conscious and neither of says anything until we pull up to my hotel. So I ask What’s a good place to eat around here? Can I buy you dinner?

She spits out, scowling. Is that what this is all about? Is that why you called me, so you could put the moves on me again?

She’s so angry she’s actually turned red. Just get out.

She says through clenched teeth, glaring straight ahead.

Fine. Suit yourself. I grab my briefcase, slamming the car door behind me. As I stomp up to my room I’m seething with shock and anger. Sure, I’m still attracted to her – who wouldn’t be – and maybe I was beginning to entertain some ideas about us, but it’s infuriating that she’d think I set this whole thing up just to get into her pants.

I get a cheeseburger from room service and sit there stewing, eventually leafing through the documents she’s given me. They’re very interesting, if only because such an extreme effort has been made to reveal as little information as possible, even in the face of governmental inquiry. I open my laptop and begin sifting through the internet, the very tiny nuggets I unearth suggesting a very strange pattern.

After an hour or two there’s a knock on the door. By this time I’ve become paranoid enough to be afraid it’s the Men in Black coming to silence me, but when I open the door, chain attached, there’s a contrite Katie, wine bottle in hand.

I’m sorry, all right? She says in her forthright way as I slip the chain and she comes in. I apologize. I guess it’s just – after my divorce and all the crap I went through at the firm – I guess I just have a problem trusting people these days.

I close the door behind her. No, that’s O.K., Katie, really. I mean I came to you because I know you, I know what kind of person you are and I respect your, you know, intelligence and tenacity and not because you’re pretty or anything.

She puts the wine bottle on the table and turn to me, smiling. Gee, thanks.

Honestly.

She takes a step toward me and then we’re in each other’s arms.

Later we’re lying in bed drinking the last of the wine. Let’s go out there she says suddenly.

What?

Yeah, so…. I look at the clock. 12:34.

She’s sitting up now, poised, couching, her eyes glittering in the dark.

I say. Let’s go. We pull on our scattered clothes and go out to the car.

At the site the quiet is almost unearthly – no birds, no insects, no leaves, – nothing but the sound of our own footsteps on the gravel. We reach the fence and look in at the square of buildings, the beam of my flashlight reflecting dully off the dusty windows.

Look Katie whispers.

And then, coming toward us very quickly, are a thousand multi-colored lights….