Invasion at Bald Eagle

by Kris Ashton

  Barkley and Brolin entered the diner together; whether by design or coincidence Bert never bothered to ask. Perhaps they had stayed together the whole time, splitting the cost of a motel or a hostel. Both wore jeans and a T-shirt and both looked out of sorts in their attire. Barkley’s pink neck seemed to long for the close protection of a collar and tie. Their eyes roved across the diner and Brolin spotted Bert first, slapping Barkley in the ribs to indicate he should follow him.

  Brolin shook Bert’s hand with a “Hey, man, you made it,” and slid into the opposite side of the booth. Barkley also shook hands with Bert and sat beside Brolin.

  “Are we in any danger?” Barkley asked right away. Clearly he had been brooding over the possibility from the moment they left Bald Eagle.

  Bert shook his head. “We’re in the clear. Richard and I came to an understanding. What about the kids?”

  “They’re being distributed among orphanages and foster homes,” Barkley said. “If you’re sure they’re not in any danger from the government, there’ll be an overworked nun who’s very glad to hear it.”

  Bert smiled. “Quid pro quo, I think it’s called. Richard doesn’t try to ‘eradicate’ his mistakes and his mistakes don’t reveal themselves to his superiors.”

  Brolin had brought in a copy of The Denver Post and he now jabbed a finger at the front page. “Speaking of government mistakes, have you seen this shit?”

  Bert nodded. He had pored over it the previous morning while enjoying the hospitality of a Denver officer and his wife. Brolin seemed to expect an opinion or comment, but Bert didn’t know what to give.

  “Dozens dead? Do they really expect that story to fly?”

  Bert shrugged and traced a finger along the plaster cast on his forearm. “Bald Eagle’s residents mostly kept to themselves. That’s a leg-up to begin with. The feds can keep the town isolated indefinitely with the radiation threat, and when friends and family come asking about the welfare of their loved ones, the government can easily say. ‘So sorry, Joe or Jane Bloggs was one of the casualties.’” Bert looked at Barkley now. “And I see your bosses were happy to march to the government’s tune?”

  “Full compensation and then some for their silence would be my guess,” Barkley said, nodding. “The government probably fed them some cock and bull story about what really went on, and they’d be happy to hear it as long as the price is right and they don’t appear culpable in any way.”

  Bert nodded. “Looks like someone ‘managed’ the press, too,” he said. “Somehow I doubt Red Jakes was giving interviews that day.”

  The waitress came over to their booth and asked Barkley and Brolin if she could get them anything. They said coffee would be fine and she went to fetch some more cups. Silence fell on both sides of the table as all three men consulted their thoughts.

  “So what lies ahead for you fellas?” Bert said eventually. “If you need a place to stay or any help getting—”

  Barkley and Brolin both shook their heads. “I’ll probably hitch back to San Francisco and shack up with some friends for a while,” Brolin said. “Hippies are like cops—we look after one another.”

  Bert grinned, his first unmitigated expression of amusement in days, and then turned to look at Barkley.

  “I called NuTech this morning. They agreed to find a position for me at one of their facilities in California. My brother is coming down from Wyoming tomorrow morning to collect me and I’m going to stay with him until everything is finalized.”

  “And what about you, Sheriff?” Brolin said, his eyes probing Bert’s face. “What are you planning to do?”

  Bert finished his coffee first so he could consider his reply. “Part of me wants to retire and just go fishing for the rest of my days, but I don’t think that’s a wise idea. Fishing on his own gives a man a lot of time to think about his troubles. It might be different if I had a friend to fish with, but they’re all dead—in one way or another.

  “I’m a cop—always have been, always will be. So if the Denver police will have me, I guess I’ll just go on being a cop until I figure out what else there is.”

  From there, the conversation drifted onto other, idle things, like a sailboat stopping at ports for no particular reason. When they had finished their coffee, the three men parted ways with reassurances that they would stay in touch by phone or letter. Bert hoped they would all keep their word.

  When a man lost all else, his pockets could hold a lot of hope.

  Saturday, October 30, 1969

  The boy scouts filed down the steps of the mini-bus in good order, their uniforms pressed, their hats as clean and straight as the morning horizon, their faces pink and alive with expectation. Bringing up the tail was Brian Masters, a small-framed boy with a spray of freckles across his nose and a mop of hair that looked like a bird’s nest (whether he ran a comb through it or not).

  This was his second year with the Scouts. Traditionally in fall they made camp in the woods of Bald Eagle County, but something bad had gone down there—Brian had heard the older scouts discussing it and gleaned snippets of it himself from the newspapers and on TV—so a new campsite had been arranged for the forested area a couple of miles east of Bald Eagle County.

  The scout leader, Mr Fritz (known to the boys as Mr Farts if he happened to be out of earshot) guided them along the foot-worn trail into the woods. The scouts joshed and razzed each other. Their piping voices—still a few years from breaking—cut through the thickening silence of the woods. Most of them enjoyed camp, but a new venue had added extra flavor, like a dash of malt in a chocolate milkshake, and their spirits were high.

  Brian stopped to re-tie the laces on his right boot. As he pulled the second knot tight, he spotted a glint from the corner of his eye. Thinking it could be a dime, he stepped off the track for a closer look.

  It wasn’t a dime or a quarter or any form of currency. It looked to Brian like silver.

  He quickly unshouldered his rucksack and stuffed the silver object as far down as he could get it. Then he ran to catch up to the others, before someone noticed he was gone and told Mr Fritz.

  When he got home to Stratton he would ask his father about it. Or perhaps not; his father would probably make him hand it in to the local police in case anyone had reported it lost. Brian didn’t know how much money you could get in exchange for a lump of silver like that, but he figured it had to be plenty. More than enough to buy a year’s worth of Superman comics. Maybe two years’.

  He decided he would show the egg to his eldest sister, Monica. She was in her final year at high school, and not only did she seem to know the answer to everything, she was also cool. She wouldn’t make him turn it in to the police.

  Brian smiled.

  EPILOGUE

  Sunday, November 16, 1969

  As he jotted down the details of a robbery, Bert tried to be grateful for his job and only succeeded in part. The Denver Police Department had invented his position because many of the senior staff knew Bert and respected him. But regardless of how hard strings had been pulled, his job amounted to glorified desk clerk, sharing and recording tales of domestic violence one moment, scrawling messages for arrogant lieutenants the next. Maybe taking a genuine murder report if the caller thought he or she would get a more prompt response contacting the station directly rather than dialing 911. The sergeant, Dick Chalmers, had promised Bert he would get him back on the beat as soon as a car became available, but Bert suspected that was hogwash—he had been put out to pasture in a cherrywood paddock four feet long and two and a half feet wide. With a pen, a desk jotter and a telephone for company.

  He had rented an apartment close to the station, a decision he had rued ever since. He spent as little time in it as he could manage—if he tried to watch the news on his second-hand television while sitting on his pre-loved sofa, the walls would close in until he could hardly breathe. He woke up with the pigeons, sometimes sweating, sometimes almost tumbling out of his tiny single bed.

  I’m exist
ing, he thought to himself as he hung up the phone and expanded on his notes. I’m alive, but I’m not living.

  Such thoughts felt as alien as the creatures that had (indirectly) put them there. The thoughts disgusted him, but he had to own up to them as well. He had tried to negotiate the crazy bend in his life and been found wanting. Now he wanted to let go of the wheel altogether. He wondered if Barkley and Brolin felt the same. Barkley probably bore the fewest scars—he had lost no one close and NuTech had taken him under its wing. But Brolin had lost everything too—as much as Bert himself, perhaps. Barkley had mailed Bert a letter soon after arriving in California, but neither had received so much as a telegram from Brolin.

  For the next minute or so Bert’s thoughts floated along like driftwood, until the ringing phone snapped him back to the here and now. He snatched up the receiver and announced that the caller had reached the Denver Police Department, District 1.

  “I know, I’m right here,” Dick said, amusement coloring his voice. Bert had not registered the higher-pitched jingle of an internal call-transfer. “I’ve got a someone on the line for you. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but he said you’d know who he was. Name’s Richard Warland. Mean anything to you?”

  All Bert’s senses froze up for a couple of seconds and then resumed again. It would be easy enough to tell Richard to take a flying leap—and it was certainly tempting. But some deep part of him, a part buried under a slag of ill-will and betrayal, wanted to speak to his best friend.

  “Put him through,” Bert said.

  Two clicks and then: “Bert, you there?”

  The son of a bitch sounded happy, almost bubbly. “I’m here, Richard.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch sooner.”

  “I’m not.”

  Richard apparently chose not to hear this. “I’d like us to get together, Bert. To be more precise, I’d like to fly you up here to Washington and meet with me.”

  “Why the hell would I want to do that?” Bert said, unable to keep his voice low.

  “Oh, I think you might.”

  They had not spoken in three months, but Bert could hear the quiver of excitement in his ex-friend’s words. When Richard Warland’s voice had that quiver, you could bet he had some wild idea in his head or had just received some juicy information. Whether he wanted to or not, Bert could not help but respond to that quiver, his heart accelerating. “Do you now?”

  “I do. In fact, I guarantee it.”

  “So what are we talking about here?”

  “I can’t discuss that over the phone, Bert. Need-to-know basis, you understand. How soon can you get away?”

  Just like Richard to presume acceptance. But his presumption was accurate enough. “This is my last shift for five days,” Bert said.

  “I’ll have a jet waiting for you at Denver Airport at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Just give them your name at the domestic terminal and they’ll direct you to it. Is that okay?”

  “Fine and dandy,” Bert said, hanging up the phone.

  Monday, November 17, 1969

  In his job Bert was accustomed to paperwork, but even he was shocked at the forms an ADETI visitor had to fill out before he or she could set foot in the complex. When he mentioned this, the girl behind the reception desk said, “You should see what civilians have to go through.”

  When Bert had snipped through all the red tape his reward was a name-badge, which he had to wear at all times. He clipped it to his shirt pocket and then the girl showed him through a door, providing rapid-fire instructions on how to get to Richard Warland’s office. Bert did his best to memorize them, then thanked her.

  For some reason Bert had imagined ADETI as a kind of bunker, most of it hidden underground in dark tunnels, away from prying civvy eyes. This could not have been farther from the truth of it—large windows allowed gallons of natural light to splash through the corridors, the walls were painted a temperate green and the newish carpet felt spongy underfoot. In areas without windows, long fluorescent bars maintained a fair façade of daylight. Even the elevator was a pleasant place to be, with its décor of polished chrome and mirrors and its piped music.

  He found Richard’s office (turn left out of the elevator and go to the end of the hall) with no trouble. The door was about eight or ten inches ajar. Bert knocked and Richard’s voice bid him come in.

  “You had a pleasant flight, I trust?” Richard said when Bert had seated himself.

  “I’ve had worse.”

  Richard chuckled. “I can understand you being short with me. If the tables were turned, I’m sure I’d act exactly the same way.”

  “But I would never turn the tables, Richard. “That’s the difference between you and me.”

  Richard smiled and stood up. “I didn’t bring you here to bicker, Bert. We did enough of it before and it’s pointless. Let me just show you why I flew you up here.”

  Bert followed his lead into the hallway. They proceeded to the elevator and Richard pressed the button marked L1.

  “When you pulled that little stunt with the dynamite, you got me to thinking,” Richard said as the elevator dropped. It was the quietest elevator Bert had ever heard—or rather not heard. “I realized that our current policy of eradication is not sustainable. Frankly, we’ve been complacent. For all we know, one or ten or a hundred more of those spores could enter our atmosphere, and one day an eradication will be imperfect or someone will find a way to escape—only they won’t keep their mouth shut like you did. I appreciate that, by the way.”

  Like I had a choice, Bert thought as the elevator bounced on the end of its cable and the doors slipped open.

  This lower level conformed better with Bert’s expectations—long warrens of bone marble floor, sterile white walls, burning banks of fluorescent lights (the same kind used upstairs, yet given to stark purpose). Opposite the elevator, a white sign with red lettering informed them they had reached SUBLEVEL A RESEARCH LABORATORIES and two arrows pointed to various divisions. Richard set off left, keeping a jittery pace. “We need to find a way to reverse the infection. I convinced my superiors that we needed to set up a facility dedicated to research. They screamed blue murder when I gave them an initial budget, but when I pointed out that it would only cost as much as three small eradications, they changed their tune. We’ve got one section fitted out so far, but I’m hoping to have this whole level dedicated to spore research by spring next year. This is us.”

  He pushed through a swinging door, the kind Bert last remembered seeing while visiting Dana in hospital. Inside, softer lighting took the edge off the austere white walls, but its minimalist appointments still left it severe and scientific. Along the left-hand side of the room ran a bench, upon which sat notebooks, pens and folders in various states of use. The bench ended at a tall filing cabinet that appeared unused or even unopened. Two other sides of the room had been fitted out with shelving, sliding glass door cabinets and more benches. Instruments populated these storage areas, some arcane, others as mundane as a surgeon’s scalpel and a pair of industrial earmuffs.

  In the dead center of the room was a table. It reminded Bert of a table found in an autopsy room, except they were usually stainless steel and this one appeared to be fashioned of white plastic. It had to be, he figured, because the form lashed to it had an exoskeleton the color of polished silver.

  The creature heard the click of Richard’s footsteps and set up a long, ear-and-brain-shredding wail that could have been frustration or loneliness or some emotion no human mind had conceived of before. Bert grimaced and looked again at the earmuffs on the bench.

  “I decided to take some prisoners of war,” Richard said over the din, smiling somehow. “After the initial air strike, there’s a ground assault that can take days or even weeks. You have to maintain the perimeter and flush the little bastards out of their foxholes and hiding places. So this time, just as we started that phase of the eradication, I decided to capture some of them. If my superiors vetoed the res
earch idea, I could just destroy them afterward. I have to tell you, capturing them is a lot harder than killing them. I lost three men in the process—one of mine and two army boys—but we did it. Next week we have three of the country’s top genetic scientists starting work here at ADETI, focusing solely on finding some way to counteract the alien infection.”

  “Well, I’m glad for you, Richard, and I’m glad for the thousands of innocent people who won’t have to die. But I don’t understand why you brought me all the way out here to show me this.”

  “Ah, but this is only part of what I wanted to show you!” Richard said, raising a declamatory finger. “What I really want to show you is in the holding bay.”

  He led Bert out of the operating theatre or autopsy room or whatever it was. The walls must have been soundproofed in some way, because swinging door or not, the creature’s keening cries were almost silenced. Richard guided Bert farther down the corridor until they came to another door, this one with an electronic lock. Richard punched a code into the small keypad and a light above it changed from red to green, like a traffic signal.

  Inside, the room did not differ much from its companion down the hall, except that it had no benches or storage facilities and much of the floorspace was given over to autopsy tables, four in all. A creature was buckled down to each one with stout leather straps. As soon as Richard and Bert entered, they started up a caustic chorus of shrieking and wailing and blunt humming.