Mother Ship

by Scott Bartlett

  “It’s hard to explain, and it may be alien in origin. But it allowed me to get my parents out of Janet’s camp, despite fifteen GDA operatives trying to stop me. And it’s what got me here from my room just now. Somehow, I’m able to project the future, and try out different versions of it, till I find the optimal course of action.”

  Ted glanced behind him again, his fingers tight on the AR-15’s handle. Alien in origin? “Max…that doesn’t sound good.”

  “I know. But Janet’s forced my hand. I can’t stay here, Ted. She’s exactly like you said. Maybe worse. And if I let her have the influence over me that she wants, I think the mission will fail anyway.”

  Someone fired from one of the adjoining corridors, and Ted grabbed Max to pull him against a corner, out of the line of fire. “Damn it,” he muttered. “Where are you going to go?”

  Max freed himself from Ted’s grasp. “Best you don’t know.” His lips firmed. “Otherwise, Janet could torture it out of you.”

  The agent opened his mouth, then closed it. He sighed. “You’ve come a long way, Max. I don’t know what you’re planning, but…you’re ready. I think you’re ready.”

  Max nodded. “I’m going, now. I don’t have a choice. I need to take the gamble that my abilities will lead to something good.”

  Ted sucked in a lungful of air. Finally, he nodded. “All right. Get out of here. We’ll hold Janet back as long as we can.”

  “There’s just one thing. My parents. I can’t find them anywhere.”

  “Your parents?” Ted raised his eyebrows.

  Max started, seeming to realize what he’d called the people who’d raised him. Then, his mouth firmed. “Yes. My parents. If they’re still here, and there’s anything you can do for them….”

  “You got it. Now get going.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Ted.” Max held out his hand.

  Ted gripped it firmly. “For what it’s worth, if the future has to rest in someone’s hands, you’re the sort of person I’d want it to be.”

  “Thanks. No pressure, right?”

  “No pressure.”

  Max saluted him, and Ted returned it. With that, the boy raised his tranq gun to a ready position and ran down the hall, the same direction from which Ted and Benson had led their men.

  51

  3 days to extinction

  Max barreled down the corridor, away from Chambers and the skirmish that was unfolding around him.

  He’d told the agent about the strange power he’d gained, but he’d withheld something pretty important.

  That power seemed to be failing.

  First, it hadn’t shown him his parents anywhere in the base. And just now, it hadn’t shown Chambers, even though the man was clearly here.

  Is it failing, or just manipulating me?

  The force, alien or otherwise, obviously wanted him out of this base and on his way to New Mexico. So much so that it seemed to be hiding anything that might keep him here.

  But what choice did he have? He had to keep following his original plan. Doing otherwise would only result in Janet capturing him again. It would squander Benson’s and Chambers’ sacrifice. So he soldiered on, tranq gun held at the ready, prepared to do what he had to in order to reach Hangar A and fly one of the Larks out of here.

  He wrenched open a door, then ran through an empty cafeteria, following the same route he’d taken in the final iteration he’d run.

  Except, when he emerged into the corridor on the other side of the cafeteria, it was supposed to be empty.

  It wasn’t.

  Two GDA operatives approached from the left, and one of them acted instantly upon seeing Max.

  If the man had been holding his tranq gun, Max probably would have gone down. But he grasped an M4 instead, probably ready to join the fight against Chambers and Benson.

  Even so, the M4 fell from his hands, and he went for the tranq gun. Max had barely begun to stumble back into the cafeteria when the dart flew. It missed him by a few centimeters, clattering off the door frame before tumbling to the floor.

  He did the only thing he knew would have a chance of helping. With the two soldiers mere feet away from gaining a clear shot, he fell back into the iterations, despite that they’d failed him three times today.

  This time, he didn’t use them to plan a route off the base. There likely wasn’t time for that, even though each simulation took just an instant to run. His adversaries were too close.

  And as he tried out multiple approaches to defeating them, he found he was right: these men were some of most skilled fighters he’d gone up against so far. Nothing he tried was working.

  Attempting to shoot them failed, since they were always quicker on the draw. Max simply didn’t have the reflexes to beat them to it.

  He tried using the doorway to get in close, past their tranq guns’ muzzles, but that didn’t work either. If he did that, the closest soldier immediately stopped trying to shoot him with tranq darts, dropped his gun, and put him into a submission hold instead.

  Maybe I’m just distracted, he thought during what felt like the thousandth iteration. He was running out of time, he knew. In real-time, the soldiers were inching toward the cafeteria door, where they would take him out.

  But how could he trust the iterations, now? How could he fully embrace their power, when they’d tricked him twice—first by concealing his parents from him, and then by hiding Chambers?

  Clearly, that had screwed with his ability to plan properly. By hiding things from him, whatever force was enabling the iterations had also compromised them, to the extent that he hadn’t seen these two men coming.

  He was being manipulated. There was no question of that. But to what end?

  Finally, instead of trying to fine tune a plan that clearly wasn’t working, he attempted something crazy. He crept backward across the cafeteria, as quickly and as silently as he could, until he reached the door he’d entered through.

  The two soldiers entered just as he was exiting. They spotted him immediately, but he loosed a dart before taking cover behind the first door. His dart took the first soldier in the neck.

  The second man returned fire, but his dart whizzed through empty air, and Max popped out to fire again.

  He got his target in the center of the forehead. The soldier went down.

  Knowing he was almost out of time, Max let the iterations dissolve and executed the plan. Under other circumstances, he would have used the iterations to drill the necessary movements until they were second nature, but he didn’t have that luxury.

  Trying not to think about what he was doing, he ran backwards, dancing across the cafeteria on his toes, his boots silent on the hard ceramic floor.

  His enemies came through the opposite door. Max planted a dart in the first man’s neck, just as in the iteration. And just like in the iteration, the second man returned fire.

  This time, the dart came a lot closer to hitting Max than it should have. It felt like a hair’s breadth, and he could have sworn he felt the feathered end brush his cheek as it passed.

  It threw him off, and he missed his shot.

  The remaining soldier took the opportunity to rush the doorway.

  Max backed away. They both needed to reload, and now it would come down to which of them reloaded first.

  He fumbled at his belt, extracting a dart from the holder there, almost dropping it.

  The GDA operative burst into the hall, his tranq gun already loaded. His muzzle found Max’s neck, and he fired.

  Max threw himself backward, onto the floor, hitting hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs.

  Struggling to breathe, he managed to raise his weapon at a steep angle and squeeze the trigger.

  The dart planted itself in the soldier’s forehead—pretty much the exact spot he’d shot him in the iteration, except the dart protruded from his skin on a downward angle.

  Before crumpling to the floor, the soldier managed to get off his dart. Having anticipated that, Max threw
himself sideways, rolling. The projectile clattered harmlessly off the tile.

  He lay there for several seconds, clutching his stomach, struggling to breathe. Finally, he mustered the will to stagger to his feet and stumble back into the cafeteria, feeling as though he would suffocate.

  Leaning against the wall, gasping, he launched back into the iterations and resumed his efforts to reach Hangar A. This time, they showed him something completely different. The hallways between here and the hangar were filled with soldiers, each armed with a tranq gun in addition to their usual loadout.

  He switched his focus to Hangar B, with similar results.

  There were too many enemies in his way. No matter what he tried, Max couldn’t make it to one of the Larks. Every attempt ended with him lying on the floor, fading into unconsciousness.

  So instead, he began pushing toward the facility’s vehicle bay. It seemed every GDA operative was out in the halls, and reaching the bay proved no easy feat. But it was doable. He worked out an iteration that saw him there

  This time, he took the time to run that iteration of reality over and over, until he could execute its every move without thinking.

  With that, he sprinted down the corridor leading from the cafeteria, paused at an intersection to shoot a soldier in the back of the neck—otherwise, he knew, the man would have chased him. That done, he continued through several more corridors and intersections, ducking under tranq fire, returning darts of his own, and switching between the two tranq guns when necessary.

  Once, a GDA soldier forgot himself and fired real rounds at him. The fire scarred the wall above his head, and Max pressed on at full speed. Once he was out of sight, he fell to the floor, skidding feet-first and twisting around so that he was in the prone position. When the soldier who’d nearly killed him appeared, Max put a dart in the soft underside of his chin.

  All according to plan.

  At last, he reached the vehicle bay. In the iteration, he’d been able to open the bay door without having to produce any credentials, and he expected reality to reflect that.

  But one thing he hadn’t thought to do was try opening any of the vehicles’ doors.

  He did so now, to find every last one was locked. What was more, he couldn’t find keys anywhere. Not even in the office built into the corner of the bay. There was a filing cabinet that jingled with what sounded like plenty of keys, but its drawers were locked, and Max doubted he had time to figure out a way to break into it.

  Desperate, he used the controls in the office to activate the bay door. He sprinted through the vehicles toward it.

  “Hey!” The shout came from the doorway he’d entered through. “Stop!”

  Max didn’t stop, instead ducking low as he ran past a black Escalade. The thunk of a dart hitting chrome told him that the newcomer was firing at him.

  I’m screwed.

  There was no way he would evade the GDA soldiers in the surrounding wilderness on foot. They had too many resources at their disposal, too many men.

  Even if he did manage to escape them, how long could he expect to survive, all alone in the Colorado Rockies, with nothing but the clothes on his back?

  Another dart clattered to the bay’s concrete floor. It would only be a matter of time before one found him. Probably when he was outside, in the open, trying to flee from the base.

  His heart sank as he spotted the dark-blue Chevy Silverado parked just outside the vehicle bay.

  This is it. They’ve cut me off.

  Then, he saw who sat in the driver’s seat. It was Jimmy, and beside him sat Tara Benson.

  The back door hung open.

  “Get in!” Jimmy shouted.

  Max dove, landing on the seat and twisting around to yank the door closed. As he did, a tranq dart hit the glass.

  Jimmy brought the truck around in a sharp turn, and they sped down the compacted dirt road, away from the secret installation.

  52

  3 days to extinction

  Ted withdrew behind a corner, ejected his AR-15’s magazine, and slapped in a fresh one. He stuck the weapon into the open, firing a spray toward the enemy, then leaned out for a clearer shot.

  He drew a bead on a GDA soldier, fired off a tight burst, and withdrew as the man fell to the floor.

  They were having more success than he’d expected.

  He’d known Benson’s men were about as well-trained as the veteran-turned-farmer could make them, in the few days he’d had with them. Some of them had also been veterans, a few of them police officers, and some simply firearm enthusiasts.

  But most of them were just civilians. And no matter what your training methodology, you couldn’t turn a disparate group like this into a militia capable of defeating the GDA in just a few days.

  Except, they were defeating them. Yes, the element of surprise had carried them for a while, and so did the speed with which they charged through the facility. That allowed them to take on just a few soldiers at once, and they overpowered those groups with sheer numbers.

  But that was changing. Ted’s former colleagues had quickly organized, and now Benson’s militia was facing serious resistance.

  At last, the GDA return fire petered off to nothing. Ted leaned out for a glimpse, then withdrew again.

  He stuck his head out longer, to confirm what he’d seen.

  “It’s clear.” He motioned for the others to advance.

  The militia moved up the corridor, weapons raised, ready to take out anything that moved. Up ahead, the hallway turned right at a one hundred and thirty-five degree angle. Ted knew they were coming to an open area—one of the largest intersections in the facility, an artificial grotto where eight corridors met at forty-five degree angles.

  He signaled a halt and spoke to the others in a low hiss. “We can expect major resistance just ahead. There’s an intersection with plenty of cover—plants, benches, tables. They’ll try to mow us down as we push out of this corridor.”

  “Any way we can hit them from two directions?” Benson asked.

  Ted considered that for a moment. Coordination would be an issue. They had short-range radios, but there was a chance Janet would be monitoring whatever channel they used.

  She won’t have much warning, if we give the signal and attack right away.

  “Yeah, actually. You wait here, and I’ll take a squad around to hit from the next corridor over. If either of us end up in the shit and need backup, just call for help over the short-range.”

  “You got it.”

  Ted gave Benson a nod, knowing full well this could be the last time he ever spoke to the man. With that, he pointed at six men—half their remaining force—and motioned for them to follow.

  Benson was right: splitting up and hitting from two angles was probably their best bet. It was also their most dangerous option. With Janet concentrating her forces and starting to push back in an organized way, the chances of his squad getting outgunned were high.

  But as they moved another empty corridor, Ted’s jaw tightened, and the hair on his arms stood at attention. He didn’t view the sudden lack of a resistance as a good thing. Instead, he took it as confirmation of what he’d said. Janet had concentrated her forces in the intersection, and was waiting for them.

  Should we just fall back? Leave?

  He shook his head slightly at the thought. There was no guarantee Max had made it out yet.

  Besides, I made a promise. I told him I’d do my best to make sure Cynthia and Peter are safe.

  Ted didn’t consider himself a good man. He’d done things he’d never forget, things that would haunt his dreams until the day he died. But he did consider himself a man of his word.

  They reached the final stretch. With the next turn, they’d be in full view of the grotto where he suspected Janet was waiting for him.

  He removed his short-range radio from his belt holster, pressing the push-to-talk button to give the signal.

  Before he could, Janet’s voice rang out from the intersection a
head, loud and clear. “You may want to reconsider your attack, Special Agent Chambers.” It sounded like she was speaking through a bullhorn.

  A silence passed, and he slowly lowered the radio to his holster before clutching his AR-15 with both hands.

  “Why’s that?” he called.

  “I have two people here who you’re apparently quite fond of. At least, the senseless actions you’ve taken on their behalf seem to suggest so. I’m sure you wouldn’t want any harm to befall them.”

  Total silence reigned once again. Ted inhaled, then exhaled, racking his brain for what he should do.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Janet called again. “I’ll give you ten seconds to drop your weapons and come out here with your hands raised. Then maybe we can talk in a more civilized manner. That would be a welcome change from how unpleasantly you’ve been behaving. The way you went against us, and tore down everything the GDA’s been working toward for decades—I have to confess, I didn’t see that coming from you, Ted.”

  He fished the radio from its holster again, and depressed the button. “Hold your ground,” he whispered to Benson. “I’ll yell if we need to attack.”

  A burst of static, then the farmer came on the line: “You got it.”

  He glanced at the members of his squad, who nodded.

  With that, Ted set his AR-15 on the floor and left the hallway with his hands up.

  Janet stood in the middle of the intersection, her lips stretched into a tight smile. In one hand she held a pistol, in the other, a smartphone. Two soldiers flanked her, weapons aimed at Cynthia and Peter, who knelt on the floor.

  Ted swept the fake grotto with his gaze. Just as he’d expected, operatives were stationed behind plants, benches, and statues. Twenty of them at least.

  Attacking from two angles might not make any difference. Clearly, Janet knew their plan—probably, she had camera feeds on that phone, and had seen them approach.

  “Let them go,” Ted said. “Do that, and we’ll walk away. You don’t need to lose any more people.”