Mother Ship

by Scott Bartlett

  “I think not. You’ve caused me more than enough trouble. I’m afraid your freedom is too big a liability.”

  “Then I’ll stay. Send Cynthia and Peter to my men behind me.”

  Janet shook her head. “No deal. I want all of your men out in the open, with no weapons and their hands as high as they can reach. Ten seconds, Ted. Ten.”

  He resisted the urge to curl his raised hands into fists. If he ordered Benson to attack, there was a good chance they’d die. Even if they won, the price would be high. Too high.

  “Nine.”

  If he gave the order to advance, Cynthia and Peter would almost certainly die. Ted had no doubt Janet would make good on her promise to kill them if he didn’t comply.

  What do I do? For once, he was at a complete loss.

  “Eight.”

  Movement caught his eye, on the far side of the intersection. Someone was limping out of one of the corridors there, toward the center.

  Ethan.

  “Seven.”

  No one seemed to notice the agent as he limped faster, clutching his thigh and grimacing with the effort.

  “Six.”

  Ted couldn’t think. His gaze was fixed to Ethan Dean as he wondered what the hell the man was doing. Clearly, he’d been seriously injured somehow.

  “Five.”

  Janet frowned, then followed Ted’s gaze, glancing over her shoulder. “Ethan. You should be resting.”

  The agent chuckled dryly.

  Janet was still studying him. “You don’t need to see this.”

  “See what, exactly, Janet?”

  She gave the ghost of a shrug, apparently ignoring the question. She returned her gaze to Ted. “Four. It’s your decision, Ted. Their lives rest in your hands.”

  Ted gritted his teeth.

  “Three.”

  The limping agent reached Janet, standing directly behind her. His arm raised, and Ted saw what he was holding. A pistol.

  “Two.”

  The muzzle reached the back of Janet’s head, and she stopped counting.

  “Ethan? What are you doing?”

  “Sorry, Janet.”

  The weapon fired, and blood sprayed. Janet slumped forward, her body landing between Cynthia and Peter. Cynthia screamed.

  Every GDA operative turned toward Ethan, training their weapons on him.

  The agent raised his hands, the pistol dangling from his thumb.

  “I think we all know that needed to happen,” he said.

  53

  3 days to extinction

  “Let me get this straight,” Jimmy said. “You heard a voice in your head, it turned out to be an alien, that alien gave you superpowers, and now the voice is telling you to go to Area 51?”

  “It told me to go to Groom Lake.”

  “That’s Area 51.” Jimmy held Max’s gaze in the rear-view mirror, his eyes dancing with excitement.

  His friend was pretending to be skeptical, but Max had seen the way his eyes lit up when he said the words “Groom Lake.” This was everything his friend had ever wanted: being stuck in the middle of an alien conspiracy theory come to life.

  For his part, Max had begun to feel like he had so many times over the course of his life: like something was deeply, profoundly wrong. After he’d uncovered his parents’ web of lies, he’d expected that sensation to go away. But it had only gotten stronger.

  Something else is going on, here.

  Why had the alien taken the voice of Tara, before he’d ever met her? It was like it had known not only that he would meet her, but also that he would develop feelings for her.

  Then it had told him to go to Groom Lake, even though Max had no idea what or where that was. Except, Jimmy knew, and clearly the alien had predicted that Jimmy would come find him at the GDA installation.

  Or maybe it had influenced Jimmy to come.

  He felt like a rat in a maze, and only the experimenter, looming over the labyrinth, knew what truly lay ahead. Max could only go left or right as he scurried to find a way out.

  But he was beginning to suspect there was no way out. At least, every time he escaped one maze, he found himself in another, bigger one.

  Jimmy had returned his gaze to the highway, but he continued going on about Area 51. “It’s also called Homey Airport. At least, that’s what the CIA say that they call it. That, and Groom Lake. But in a Vietnam War-era document, they called it Area 51, and that’s what stuck.”

  Max’s stomach was rumbling. “Got anything to eat?”

  Jimmy opened the center console, rummaged around without looking, and tossed Max back an energy bar. “Courtesy of Walmart.”

  “Thanks.” He ripped open the wrapper.

  As he chewed, he found himself staring at the back of Tara’s head, wondering what her role was in all this. Was she aware, on any level, that the aliens knew who she was, and were using her to get to him?

  She turned and caught him studying her. “Whatcha looking at?” she asked, a knowing smile growing on her face.

  She thinks I’m looking at her because she’s beautiful. Well, that’s partly true.

  He just smiled back.

  Jimmy was looking at him again in the rear-view, and his eyes had hardened. In a flash, memories of his one night in Fort Benson bombarded Max: lying beside Tara, holding her, the thought nagging him all the while that Jimmy had wanted her.

  Had he betrayed his friend? Back in high school, Jimmy had been spoiled for choice, romantically. But maybe things were different in the post apocalypse. Definitely, they were.

  And—as hard as Max found this to grasp, given how many girls he’d watched Jimmy go through—maybe his friend actually had real feelings for Tara.

  “You sure it’s a good idea to trust an alien?” Jimmy’s tone came out hard, with a note of bitterness.

  Oh yeah. He’s pissed. “I don’t see any other choice.”

  “I do. You could not trust them. I mean, they haven’t given us much reason to be so trusting. The whole making everyone go crazy thing…killing off most of the population….” Sarcasm dripped from Jimmy’s voice.

  Max sucked air into his diaphragm, steadying himself. Don’t take the bait. “It’s possible the aliens are divided. Maybe not all of them like what they’re doing to us.”

  In the mirror, his friend smirked. “Seems like a long shot, Max. Are humans divided about how we’ve treated ants? I don’t think so. Even PETA never talked about ‘ant rights.’ Because, you know, that’s what we are to them.” Jimmy motioned upward with his head, toward the sky. “Ants.”

  “Again, I don’t see another option. Whatever I’ve been communicating with, it’s helped me twice. Once to rescue my parents, and again to escape from that facility.” He decided not to mention how the alien had concealed certain things from him, like his parents, along with Chambers’ presence. “If it wanted me dead, it would just fly a saucer overhead and do it.”

  Tara glanced back again. “Maybe it’s manipulating you.”

  “To do what, though? What could an alien possibly want from me that it couldn’t get for itself?”

  “We don’t know. We don’t understand anything about them, or their capabilities, or their motives. I’m just saying you need to be careful, Max.”

  He drew another deep breath. “I get it. But again, I don’t see another option. We can’t go back. There’s nowhere else to go. We have to chase this down.” He forced himself to grin. “Come on, Jimmy. You live for this kind of thing. An alien entity, telling you to visit Area 51? This is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Admit it.”

  For a long moment, Jimmy held his gaze in the rear-view mirror, almost glaring. Then, his foul mood seemed to break. The corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile.

  “Yeah. It kind of is.”

  With that, Max’s breath came a little easier. Seeing evidence that somewhere deep down, their friendship had survived.

  “Hey,” Jimmy said, his eyes back on the road. “I know I’ve been a shit.
At least, that’s what Chambers told me, and he’s probably right. So, I’m sorry. Okay?”

  Max nodded, wanting to apologize too, but it was too awkward with Tara sitting right there.

  “I’ve got your back,” Jimmy continued. “Always.”

  “You too, man.” Max said it, but it didn’t feel true. “Thanks for coming to rescue me.”

  His friend shrugged. “All in a day’s work.”

  Tara was looking at Max again. Outside, the sky was darkening into dusk. “It’s twelve hours of straight driving from here to, uh, there. You should probably get some sleep, if you can. I doubt there’ll be time to catch a nap once we get there. I’m guessing we’ll have things to do.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You should sleep too.”

  She nodded, and Max stretched out on the Silverado’s back seat. There was a ratty pink blanket on the floor, which looked like it had been probably been used to cover the seat for a dog to sit on. Black fur clung to it.

  Right now, Max didn’t care. He bunched it up and stuffed it between his head and the door, using it as a pillow.

  Sleep came a lot sooner than he expected.

  In the dream, Tara stood before him.

  No—she hovered before him. Her feet were clean off the ground, and she was slowly ascending farther. Up, and up.

  “Come on,” she said to him. “There’s so much I need to tell you.”

  54

  2 days to extinction

  Max hadn’t realized how exhausted he was until he woke at the end of their journey, to a saucer hanging in the morning sky.

  He squinted at it, rubbing his eyes against the brightening horizon. Right now, it was little more than a dot. But it was there.

  “Are we approaching a city?” Max felt dumb the moment he asked it: they were driving down a dirt road, so of course they weren’t. But it had been his first thought, since until now he’d only known the saucers to hover over cities.

  Jimmy shook his head, and when he spoke his voice came out in a croak. “No.” His eyes were red, like…well, like he’d been driving all night. Beside him, Tara stirred, but didn’t wake. “That thing is hovering over Area 51.”

  Max didn’t have anything to say to that, and neither did Jimmy, it seemed. They drove on in bleary silence, one trying to shake off sleep, the other no doubt yearning for it.

  It took a long time for his grogginess to recede. He thought about how much his body had been through over the last week. From sneaking through a city overrun with people killing each other, to running from the GDA on horseback, to sleeping on the forest floor…and more recently, getting beaten and humiliated by Janet and her men.

  No wonder he’d slept the entire trip, basically comatose as the Silverado took them across three states.

  “Any chance that thing belongs to the helpful aliens?” Jimmy asked, meeting Max’s eyes in the mirror.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Can you ask?”

  “I…can try.”

  Is that your ship, up there? he thought, into the ether.

  Nothing.

  “It’s not working. Looks like I don’t get to choose when we talk.”

  “And you’re sure you’re not just going crazy, right?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  Jimmy sighed, his shoulders heaving. “Well, we should have a plan for if the ship is hostile.”

  Max nodded, chewing his lip. “To be honest, I can’t think of any plan that involves a Silverado being worth much against a giant flying saucer.”

  “Fair point. I guess our plan is to pray.” His friend sighed again. “For what it’s worth, I stocked up on weapons after we ditched Tara’s dad and the others from Fort Benson. Got a couple Colt semi-auto rifles we can use, two shotguns courtesy of Remington, plus my dad’s old hunting rifle. They’re in the back.”

  “Again, not sure what they’ll do again an alien ship, but it’s good to know.”

  No answer from Jimmy. He raised a hand from the wheel to his eyes and rubbed them vigorously.

  I should try to inject a little more optimism into the conversation. “From what Chambers said, and from what I saw back in Oklahoma City, the ships only shoot once you get close enough to something it cares about. So, we won’t have to worry about it frying us till then.”

  “Well, that’s something.” Jimmy tilted his head toward Tara. “You should probably get her up. We turned onto Groom Road a half hour ago. That’s the one that takes us to the base. We’ll be there in about an hour.”

  Max shook Tara by the shoulder.

  “Hmm?” Tara sat up, blinking, looking around her.

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Okay. I’m up.” She looked at Jimmy. “We should pull over. Get some guns ready.”

  In the mirror, Max saw Jimmy grin. He winked at Max. “Good thinking.”

  Jimmy didn’t bother actually pulling over—who was going to come up behind them? They all clambered out, and Jimmy lowered the tailgate to reveal his modest arsenal, the weapons resting on the truck bed beneath the cap.

  Jimmy glanced at Tara. “You have a preference?”

  She reached for one of the semi-auto rifles. “I’ll take the 6920.”

  Jimmy raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. “Maxwell?”

  “Same.” He reached into the truck to remove the other Colt.

  “All right, then. Guess I’m sticking with dad’s rifle.”

  “Not gonna take a Remington?”

  Jimmy eyed the tactical shotguns. “Nah. I’ll stick to what I know.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Next, Jimmy handed out magazine holsters, taking ammo pouches for himself. “I got lots. Take as many as you think you can carry.”

  Max stared down at the assault rifle he held. “You guys should head back.”

  Jimmy sighted down his hunting rifle at the ground. “The hell you talking about?” He cracked the weapon, stared into the barrel, then snapped it into place.

  “This is my job. I’m the one the government bred for this. The one with alien superpowers.”

  “I doubt even superpowers are going to do much against that thing.” Jimmy nodded toward the giant saucer in the sky. “Face it. You need us.”

  “You’re stuck with us, at the very least.” Tara said, looking up from her own semi-automatic and smiling.

  Max nodded back, unable to repress a smile of his own. “All right, then.”

  With all three of them kitted out, they climbed back into the truck. Max’s eyes went straight back to the saucer suspended in the sky as Jimmy started the truck again, and they got rolling.

  Groom Road wound south and west, mostly west. In time, Max began catching glimpses of the base over the flat terrain, to their left. Then they rounded a turn, a hill fell away, and he got a clear view of it.

  The base’s layout followed a rough grid with buildings laid out neatly, like a tidy little community. Tidy, except that it was crawling with thousands of people—people who wandered aimlessly, getting into fights with each other, or just standing and staring into space.

  “Crazies,” Jimmy spat, and cursed. “The place is crawling with crazies.”

  The great saucer’s shadow darkened much of the base, and the dimness below it writhed with yet more people. Max was surprised to notice that the highly classified base was protected by little more than a chain link fence.

  Tara turned to face him. “Any idea yet what we’re supposed to do, here?”

  He shook his head. “No. But I’m guessing the reason we’re here is probably also the thing that saucer is protecting.”

  “Are you saying we need to go straight underneath that thing?”

  “I think so.”

  “Wonderful,” Jimmy said. “Well, I guess we have our plan, then. Drive straight for it, as fast as we can.”

  Max said nothing. It didn’t sound very wise, now that Jimmy said it out loud. But he didn’t voice any objections, because he had no other ideas. And this time, no voice spo
ke up inside his head to offer any.

  “At least it hasn’t vaporized us yet,” Jimmy muttered.

  They rounded another turn, and the chain link fence lay ahead, broken by a candy cane-colored boom gate next to a squat building with large rectangular windows, which were probably bulletproof.

  Jimmy didn’t hesitate. He floored the accelerator, and the Silverado shot forward.

  The boom gate looked like solid metal, and it sure felt like it as they crashed through. Max grabbed onto Jimmy’s seat, and Tara nearly beat her face off the dash, just barely catching herself in time.

  The gate itself didn’t crack—instead, the mechanism it was attached to tore from its casing, and the truck sailed through.

  That was when the saucer began firing.

  55

  2 days to extinction

  The same white-blue beam Max remembered from Oklahoma City lanced downward, and the road in front of them exploded, sending clouds of dirt and rock in all directions.

  Jimmy swerved, taking them off the road and nearly into a cluster of scraggly bushes. The bumpy terrain jostled Max up and down, and he grabbed for his seat belt, managing to get it around him and into the receiver before he cracked his head off the ceiling.

  Jimmy sped up as the bushes burst into flame, taking them around the conflagration and back onto the road.

  “Holy shit, Jimmy,” Max yelled. “Keep that up!”

  “You got it.”

  Another energy buildup appeared under the saucer, but Jimmy was already jerking the wheel, and braking this time, the back of the truck fishtailing to the right. Whether he was lucky or psychic, he did it again: the beam touched down where the truck bed had been, again ravaging the road.

  They passed a giant satellite dish on the left, along with a smattering of flat-roofed rectangular buildings. Then came some peaked roofs, and a broad tarmac area where a single fighter jet sat parked. It looked advanced, but not quite as much as the Lark X-1s waiting in the Colorado Rockies.

  The ship fired again, and Tara screamed. The beam grazed the hood of the truck, though Jimmy jerked it away in the next instant.