“Close it,” she called to the guards outside. The back of the truck slammed shut. Just as it had during her other visits, the compartment’s single dome light came on.
Janet wore a cheery smile—clearly faked. “Are we ready to share the asset’s location yet?”
“We aren’t.” The words came out in a croak, but Cynthia paired them with a fake smile of her own.
Janet nodded. “No, I don’t expect you are. I’m sure you’re prepared to hold out for a while longer yet. But what I find remarkable is that even after I separated him from you, you still have enough of a hold over Peter that he hasn’t divulged the location either.”
Trying to bait me won’t work, Janet. The implication that Cynthia controlled Peter—a persistent rumor throughout the GDA, she knew—was clearly meant to anger her. She wouldn’t let it.
But Janet wasn’t done. “It worked out so well for our efforts that you and Peter actually fell in love during your work together. I remember how delighted Andrews was when he heard that. What a convincing front it allowed you to put on. The doting parents, deeply in love. You even loved him, too. The asset, I mean. Didn’t you?”
“You mean Max.”
Janet smirked. “Then again, it makes sense you’d fall in love with Peter. Who else was there? Given the all-encompassing nature of both your jobs…how much time you spent with each other…and after all, if you’d chosen someone else, it would have been cheating in young Max’s eyes, if he ever found out. Easier to just settle for Peter, I suppose.”
“I didn’t settle.”
Janet’s phony smile broadened. “No, of course not. True love, wasn’t it? But I have to wonder. Was it really love, or was his heart just the weapon you used to bludgeon him into submission? Do you love Peter, or do you love exploiting him?”
Cynthia became aware that her own smile had dropped away, and she forced it back on. “Janet, I know you tell yourself that you hurt people for the good of our species, but I don’t think you’ll ever convince me there’s a part of you that doesn’t enjoy it. A big part.”
The agent’s smirk remained plastered on, but Cynthia could tell she’d gotten to her.
Janet learned forward slightly. “Actually, I came here to show you some mercy.”
“Seems likely.”
“I’m serious. We’ve been colleagues, of a sort, for a long time. And my next method of inquiry is known to do lasting damage…psychologically. I wanted to give you fair warning.”
Cynthia lowered her eyebrows, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. “You’re going to waterboard us.”
“Not you. I really do believe you’ll hold out, possibly until you’re dead. Your attachment to the asset is…truly something. Admirable, I suppose, in a way. No, I’m going to waterboard your husband. I think we both know he’ll break and tell me exactly what I need to know. But it will require him to break. As in, I expect something inside of him to remain broken. Before that happens, I want to give you the chance to preserve the man we know as Peter Edwards. Because he’ll be something different by the time I’m through with him.”
Cynthia bit her lip to prevent herself from speaking. A pit of dread had settled in her stomach, and it was sapping her energy. She suddenly felt exhausted.
“Last chance, Cynthia. Last chance to save Peter.”
A long moment of silence stretched between them.
Janet stood. “Very well.” She got to her feet and made her stooped way to the back of the truck.
Her feet were on the ground outside, and her hands were on the door when Cynthia said, “Wait.”
Janet’s arms had been tensed as she prepared to slam the door shut, but now they relaxed. Moving with deliberation, she slowly climbed back into the compartment and made her way back to the wheel well to sit across from Cynthia once more.
“Yes?”
“He’s at the Somerton acreage.”
This time, Janet’s smile looked more genuine. Without a word, she got up and climbed out of the truck.
Once outside, she paused with her hand on the door. “You always were a sensible woman, Cynthia.”
With that, the back of the truck slammed shut, casting her in darkness once more.
The terrible music didn’t come back on. It was over.
She let herself slump sideways, until she lay on the cold metal again. With that, she brought her hands to her face and wept.
12
7 days to extinction
The ship hovering over the city kept drawing Max’s gaze as they made their furtive way north through the chaotic streets.
As they drew farther away from Max’s house, the air grew hazier. Soon, they were both coughing, mouths pressed against upper biceps in an attempt to filter some of the particulate.
The fires were spreading.
The sight of the ship looming above reminded him of the Chinese fighter pilots who’d tried to attack the ship over Beijing, and had their weapon systems frozen for their trouble. But what had happened after that? Had the aliens allowed the squadron of Chengdu J-20s to return peacefully to the ground, or had the saucer blown them from the air?
The news anchor hadn’t said either way, which probably didn’t mean much.
Chambers had instructed Max to stay quiet and follow his lead. Together, they moved through the city faster than Max had, yet somehow with more caution. The agent had a better eye for checking every possible avenue of attack, and he detected threats long before Max did, rerouting them to safety or motioning for Max to crouch down behind a hedgerow, car, or some other obstruction. At those times, both of them waited, scarcely breathing with weapons in hand, knowing that if it came to shooting they would both almost certainly die. The noise would draw mobs to them.
Can I trust him?
Max knew the answer to that. Clearly, he couldn’t trust Chambers. The man had helped concoct the fiction that had been Max’s life. He had lied to him repeatedly, for years, and he might again.
The real question was whether trusting Chambers was a lesser risk than ditching him at the first opportunity. The man knew what he was doing, and if he was willing to help Max avoid bigger threats, maybe trusting him was worth the gamble.
The agent wore a beige backpack which he’d apparently stuffed full of ammo and rations stolen from his employers.
The thing didn’t seem to hinder him much. They were crossing through a small public park when a man built like a linebacker exploded from a bush with purple-tinged leaves. He went for Chambers, but it was like attacking water. The man Max once thought was just his principal flowed around his assailant, hammering him in the stomach and ending up behind him as his opponent doubled over, wheezing. Chambers wrapped his arms around the man’s head, clearly about to snap his neck.
“Don’t!” Max yelled.
Chambers paused, frowning at him, still gripping the man’s head. Then his hands darted down, and in less than a second he had the man standing whip-straight in a grappling hold. When the man struggled, Chambers applied pressure to his right arm, causing him to yelp.
“He’s going to draw others to us,” the agent said.
“Over there.” Max nodded toward a Citibank branch on a nearby street. “Let’s take him into that bank.”
They both had their mouths uncovered now, each trying to suppress coughing as they crossed the small park. They found the bank’s glass doors unlocked, and the lobby empty. That didn’t mean there weren’t others waiting in the offices beyond, and both Max and Chambers tried to keep an eye on everything at once, including the teller counters.
“Now what?” Chambers said.
“Let’s take him farther inside. Maybe there’s somewhere we can lock him in.”
By now, the big man had mostly stopped struggling, with Chambers’ regular applications of pain. He still yelped occasionally, but hopefully there wasn’t anyone left in the bank who the noise would attract.
Who hangs out in a bank during the apocalypse, anyway?
They found a sup
ply closet, and Chambers held the door closed while Max struggled to drag a heavy oak desk out of an office and into the hall. Together, they positioned it across the closet door.
“That won’t hold him,” Chambers said, so together they ran and got another desk to add to the first. With both desks positioned back-to-back, there wasn’t enough room in the hallway for the door to open.
Their work done, Max scrambled over the top of the desks to join Chambers on the lobby side.
The agent gave him a flat look as they headed for the exit. “Explain to me why we took the risk of doing this.”
“They’re people. Innocent people who were changed by what those ships did to them. They don’t deserve to die.”
“I think they’re lost to us, Max.”
“They might not be. They could come back.”
Chambers paused with his hand on the glass door’s handle. “If they do, I hope it’s with no memory of the time they spent as savage killers.”
He opened the door, and they sprinted away from the bank, their footsteps as silent as they could make them. They turned down the first alley they came to, and after that, it was a matter of sticking to alleyways as much as they could, darting from hiding spot to hiding spot as they continued north.
Neither of them discussed the man they’d left in the bank any further, or the fact that he could very well starve to death inside that closet—a much worse death than the swift one Chambers would have given him.
He’ll manage to get out. Somehow. Max had to believe that.
They were crouched under an overpass, concealed behind a jeep as they made sure it was clear to continue. “We’ll need a car at some point,” Max whispered. “Right?”
Chambers glanced at him sharply—probably because he was talking. He checked around them carefully, then met Max’s gaze. “It’s too risky yet. Once we get farther out, we’ll grab an SUV or something. Most people seem to have left their cars with the keys still in the ignition.”
“I left my parents’ Impreza a couple kilometers ahead, one street over. We could take that.”
The agent seemed to study Max more carefully. “The car has sentimental value?”
Max hesitated, then nodded.
“I suggest you lose your attachment to anything material. That will get you killed, now. We need an SUV or a truck, in case we need to go off-road, and we need one that’s farther out than your Subaru.”
Ten minutes later, as they came upon an intersection, Max noticed the smoke was thinning. The sound of a motor reached them, and Chambers pulled Max behind a bus stop’s glass shelter by the back of his shirt.
He watched through the transparent shelter as the truck approached—a Ford F150 traveling at a fair clip, weaving around parked cars and narrowly missing a few of them.
They’re in a hurry.
Then, Max noticed the direction Chambers was looking: fifty meters down the street, to their right, a massive crowd of people clogged the way.
Max’s gaze returned to the truck. “They’re not slowing down.”
Chambers turned to glare at him with a finger pressed over his lips.
At the last possible second, the truck’s driver slammed on the brakes. For a moment, it had looked like he would plow right through the milling throng, but he’d apparently lost his nerve at the last second.
Thank God.
The crowd closed in around the truck, and the people nearest it slapped and punched the chrome, others climbing onto the truck’s hood to pummel the glass. They seemed to have zero concern for the damage they were doing to themselves, just like the man who Max had nearly taken out with the Impreza.
He knew what would happen next, and it made his whole body tense up.
I should run over there. I should do something.
Chambers seemed to pick up on what he was considering, and he placed a hand on Max’s arm, shaking his head.
But Max knew he could pull away from the agent’s grasp.
Those people are going to die if I don’t do something.
A voice spoke into him, then—a voice that wasn’t his own. Max. You mustn’t. It was the same soft, female voice that had spoken to him back on the Somerton acreage. Look.
With that, his reality splintered.
One Max remained behind the bus shelter, safe from danger. But another Max sprinted toward the truck, waving his hands and shouting to draw the people there away from the vehicle.
It didn’t work. Some of them noticed Max, and staggered toward him—away from the danger posed by the pickup. But most remained. And when the truck surged forward, several of them died. Max had given up his and Chambers’ location for nothing.
That reality ended, and another began. He left the bus shelter with his Ruger drawn, firing into the air to get the crowd’s attention. That worked better, but some still remained near the truck, to be run down.
Many more came charging at Max and Chambers, forcing them to flee. The only protection they could reach in time were the vehicles parked on the road, so they locked themselves inside a green hatchback. Then, the mindless rioters began bludgeoning the windows and windshield with various blunt instruments. The glass splintered.
Several other scenarios played out. Several other attempts to save those people from the truck, and from themselves. None of them worked out. Each one ended in death.
You see, the voice said. Nothing you try will save them. You must survive.
With that, Max returned to himself—returned to his original reality. He felt like a rubber band snapping back into place. Blinking, he realized he was still crouching with Chambers behind the bus shelter, and less than a second had passed since the voice had first spoken.
Then the truck accelerated, and Max inhaled sharply. Time seemed to slow as people were sent staggering away from the vehicle’s front, while others flipped over the top to land in the sea of people behind. A few disappeared beneath the truck’s undercarriage. Max’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t look away.
The pickup began to slow as its wheels contended with the pileup of bodies, but it seemed clear the mass of people wouldn’t stop it.
Max finally wrenched his gaze away from the carnage. He looked back in time to see a white-hot beam connecting the ship overhead to the truck for just an instant. That was all it took for the vehicle to burst into flames, and a second later, it exploded, shrapnel hurtling into the people all around it. The driver had managed to get his door partially open in an attempt to escape, and he was blown clear to land on the hood of a lowrider parked nearby. His limbs lay at odd angles.
Some of the mindless people who’d survived the explosion chased the driver’s corpse, climbing onto the lowrider to continue attacking his still form.
“Come on.” Chambers grabbed Max again and pulled him out from behind the shelter.
That was all the encouragement Max needed, and together they made a run for it. They didn’t stop running for some time.
At last, breathing heavily and trudging toward Oklahoma City’s outskirts, they came across a GMC Terrain far enough out to satisfy Chambers. The keys were missing from the ignition, but a quick search found them on the floor on the passenger side. Chambers climbed into the driver’s seat, and Max passed the keys to him.
He stared out the windshield, silent, as Chambers pulled away from the curb where they’d found the SUV. He couldn’t stop replaying the scene at the bus shelter in his head.
Whose voice was that? He was sure he’d never heard it before. Even more confusing were the visions it had given him.
The most obvious explanation was that the stress of the last three days was getting to him, causing him to lose his grip on reality. What he’d seen as he crouched behind the bus shelter were delusions. That explanation was supported by the fact that none of them had shown the alien ship firing on the truck, which was what had actually happened.
He didn’t want to believe he was delusional. But he also didn’t care to share what had happened with Chambers. It w
as too bizarre, and it made him deeply uneasy. Scared, if he was being honest with himself.
“Why do you think the ship targeted that truck?” he asked instead, after a few minutes of silence.
“Well, there was a chemical plant that serviced oilfields very close to where we were, and that truck was headed for it. Could be the people driving it had hunkered down somewhere nearby and were worried about an explosion at the plant. Or maybe they thought there was something there they could use. Either way, that ship clearly didn’t want them going there.”
“Wow.” Max sat with that for a few seconds. “I didn’t consider chemical plants might start exploding. Good thing Oklahoma doesn’t have any nuclear plants.”
Chambers shook his head. “If it was an explosion those people were concerned about, they needn’t have worried. The aliens aren’t going to let any plants explode.”
“What do you mean?”
“Checking on power plants was one of our agency’s first priorities, when this started. And before we lost contact with the rest of our command structure, we got word that the plants are already being taken care of.”
Max shook his head, lost.
Chambers glanced at him. “They’re still fully operational, Max. Run by people—probably the same people that worked at them.”
“They’re…helping the aliens?”
“No. They became something else. Sort of like the berserkers that have overrun the city, but instead of mindlessly killing, they’re mindlessly doing their jobs. Apparently they wouldn’t speak to the agents who went to check on them. They stared right through them, taking no notice of them at all.”
“What’s the point of it? Why would the aliens prevent explosions just to protect the same population they made go crazy?”
Chambers gave a bitter chuckle. “They aren’t protecting us—they’re protecting our infrastructure. They don’t want to inherit a pockmarked, radioactive cinder of a planet. That’s of no use to them. And who better to keep their new colony fresh and clean than the very species they stole it from?”
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