Outside Context Problem: Book 03 - The Slightest Hope of Victory

by Christopher Nuttall

  As if the thought had brought them into existence, more alien warriors materialised from one of the buildings and started to stride through the alien city. None of the workers, Edward noticed, flinched away from them, or even took any notice of the warriors at all. That was odd – and quite inhuman. Edward had seen civilians flinch away from soldiers in uniform, as if they feared that the military men would turn violent at any moment. And yet the aliens showed no reaction at all.

  “It is a goddamned ant colony,” he said, grimly.

  “Not just ants,” Georgina said, tartly. “Look over there.”

  Edward followed her gaze. There was a small group of figures being moved from one building to another – human figures. At first, he thought that they were collaborators, even though all of the reports from infiltrators had agreed that no humans were allowed into the alien city. And then he saw how they walked and knew, instantly, that they were prisoners.

  He sucked in his breath sharply as he realised that they were all young girls, although it was difficult to tell just how old they actually were. American youth had largely been able to grow up without major problems – which hadn't stopped them believing that their relatively small problems were actually end-of-the-world problems – but youths in less fortunate countries often looked older than they actually were. The girls he was staring at were physically in their early twenties, if that, yet they seemed older. And several of them were clearly pregnant.

  “Those bastards,” Georgina hissed, from beside him. “They’re ... they’re children.”

  Edward shrugged. He hadn't considered himself a child since he’d turned thirteen, although it had been several years before his parents actually accepted that their little boy had grown up. Joining the Marine Corps had probably had something to do with it ... far too many children remained childish until they hit their thirties, if they didn't move out and set up somewhere on their own.

  But she was right. The girls had been kidnapped.

  He studied them thoughtfully, activating the recording function on the binoculars. The records would be scrutinised by the higher-ups in hopes of identifying the girls, although it was unlikely they would find anything. Once, a missing teenage girl would have shocked the nation and everyone from the local police force to the FBI would turn out to search for her. Now, the list of missing people included millions of names, ranging from military personnel who’d gone underground to criminals who had taken advantage of the chaos to hide. And, of course, hundreds of thousands of civilians who had died during the invasion. It was unlikely in the extreme that they would ever identify the prisoners ...

  And then he swore as he zoomed in and studied one particular girl. She looked ... familiar, oddly so. The memory was on the edge of his mind, mocking him. He closed his eyes and concentrated, silently asking where he had seen the girl before. For a long moment, his mind refused to cooperate ... and then it hit him. She’d been a prize-winning sharpshooter in Chicago – no mean feat – before the aliens had landed. And then she’d gone hunting aliens and their collaborators ... and then she’d actually shot an alien leader. There were very few people, including military snipers, who could make that claim.

  Edward had given the matter no thought, but he knew that if he had he would have assumed that the girl – it bugged him that he couldn't remember her name – had been killed in the final bloody hours before Chicago fell. The aliens had reinforced their Arab collaborators with their own forces and advanced, intent on nothing less than pulverising any part of the city that dared show resistance. According to the last reports, the population had been more than halved – and those that remained were kept under tight control at all times. Any remaining resistance fighters would be keeping their heads down.

  And they brought her here, he thought. Why?

  It made no sense. The girl – Dolly, he recalled now – was hardly an important prisoner. It wasn't as if she was the President, or the Head of the NSA or someone else who had become a high-fugitive after the invasion and Fall of Washington. They would have killed her, or turned her into a gruesome example of what happened to people who killed alien leaders, or maybe even turned her into one of the Walking Dead. Instead, they were keeping her prisoner in one of their cities. It made no sense. It wasn't as if they had a shortage of POW camps for prisoners they deemed unworthy of being turned into the Walking Dead.

  He studied the girl as she stumbled into the next building, feeling a twinge of pity as he realised just how listless she was. She walked as if she was on the verge of tumbling over; the alien at her side, which he’d assumed to be a guard, might have been there to help her if she fell over. Her hair had clearly been left unattended for weeks, as if she no longer cared to take the effort to brush and comb it every day. Even prisoners in maximum security prisons had more dignity than that.

  “She’s been drugged,” Georgina said, quietly. “They’ve all been drugged.”

  Edward snorted. “Isn't that against the Geneva Conventions?”

  The thought was bitterly amusing. For whatever reasons suited them, the aliens had been surprisingly good at taking care of prisoners, at least the ones they deemed to be of no actual use to them. And they were feeding the refugees, rather than allowing them to die, along with most of the rest of the urban population in the United States. But they did other things too, things that seemed utterly inhuman. Brainwashing prisoners and then putting them to work as allies was worse than anything the Taliban had ever done.

  We’re dealing with an alien morality here, he reminded himself. They’re not even remotely human.

  They shared a long look, then started to crawl back, heading towards where they’d hidden the tent and camping gear. According to their cover story, they were a married couple from one of the destroyed towns and they had the paperwork to prove it. Edward privately had his doubts about how well it would stand up to scrutiny. There was no shortage of people who had hidden rather than register, but the Order Police conducted routine checks of civilian papers and insisted that shopkeepers check that their customers had papers before selling them anything. Now that the New Dollar was finally entering circulation ...

  Luck was with them. They skirted a pair of checkpoints, including one that hadn’t been there earlier, and then made it to the campsite without further incident. Edward had privately suspected that someone would eventually discover the site and rob them, but so far they’d been lucky. Maybe the other people hiding in the mountains had decided to stay well away from them, just in case.

  Shaking his head, he climbed into the tent, carefully disarmed the booby-trap he’d set to obliterate any unwanted evidence if someone discovered the tent and pulled out a modified laptop. Once he’d entered the password, he inserted the memory card from the binoculars, copied the files onto the laptop and then wrote out a full report. Later, once darkness had fallen completely, he would take the laptop to one of the hidden cables and upload the report to his superiors. They’d use the data for something, he hoped. Maybe it would even point them to the alien weakness that could be turned against the bastards.

  Edward gritted his teeth after he finished writing the report, wondering just when they would be able to kick the aliens off Earth – or at least out of America – for good. The longer the occupation lasted, the greater the damage to America’s social integrity. It was already breaking apart down south, ever since California had finally gone under ... hell, if the aliens hadn't garrisoned the area, it would have been much more.

  He shook his head, tiredly. Just how much more could the country take before it was shattered beyond repair?

  Chapter Three

  Virginia, USA

  Day 191

  Abigail Walker was almost dead on her feet by the time they were finally marched into a hidden building and down a long stairwell, somewhere in rural Virginia. She had absolutely no idea where she was beyond a rough idea of the state – and they felt as if they had walked far enough to cross the state line into another state. Her wrist
s hurt from the cuffs, her legs hurt because of all the walking and no one seemed to care. Nicolas had warned her that the resistance would probably be suspicious of them and she’d claimed to understand, but she hadn't really understood what he’d meant until they’d landed. They were effectively being treated as prisoners.

  “If you’re genuinely who you claim to be – and no one has done anything to your mind – then I’m sorry about this,” their greeter said. No names had been exchanged and half of their escort wore black facemasks. “If not ... then we will find out and liberate you from your servitude.”

  Nicolas let out a droll chuckle. “Get on with it,” he ordered. “There really isn't much time.”

  Abigail was pushed into a second room, which looked surprisingly like a doctor’s surgery, complete with examination table and a couple of chairs. She was still staring at the table when she felt someone cutting into her clothes and removing them, one by one. Her one protest was angrily cut off, leaving her fuming silently as she was stripped. They didn't even leave her with her panties.

  “Make sure you don’t destroy any of the tools we brought with us,” Nicolas ordered. They’d stripped him too, but he seemed utterly unperturbed. On the other hand, everyone else in the room was male too. “Put them in a strongbox if you like, but don’t destroy them.”

  “Understood,” the resistance leader – if he was the leader – said, as the doctor stepped forward. “Stand very still, all right?”

  Abigail watched as the doctor carried out what looked like a thoroughly unpleasant exam, starting with a full physical search and then placing several electrodes against Nicolas’s head, checking his brainwaves. It took her a moment to realise that he was actually looking for the implants that turned a person into an alien slave; there’d been quite a bit of information about them passed through the underground network. So far, no one had successfully managed to remove the implants, let alone deactivate them. The Walking Dead would stay alien slaves, permanently. Or so the Rogue Leaders believed.

  “He appears to be clean,” the doctor said, finally. “Young lady?”

  He gave Abigail a droll smile as she was pushed forward. “I’m gay,” he said, dryly. She couldn't help noticing Nicolas jump in shock. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  Abigail gritted her teeth as he scanned her body with several different devices, then inspected each and every one of her cavities. By the time he was done, she felt almost violated, even though the inspection had been completely impersonal. She looked around to see that most of the resistance fighters had turned their backs, clearly having decided to offer her privacy rather than keep a sharp eye on her. At least they had more human decency than the aliens and their collaborators.

  “They both appear to be clean,” the doctor said. “I found nothing on either of them.”

  Abigail flushed. “We could have told you that,” she snapped. “You didn't have to ...”

  “They couldn’t have taken our word for it,” Nicolas pointed out, mildly. He looked over at the resistance leader. “We need to send a message to whoever is in charge of the state resistance, quickly. And the message has to remain absolutely secure.”

  “I can handle that,” the leader said. He nodded to two of his men, who pushed Abigail towards yet another door. “I think you’d better get cleaned up and have a shower, then we can talk properly.”

  Abigail smiled. “You mean that we can get out of these cuffs?”

  “Yes,” the leader said. He seemed to have relaxed, slightly. “But you will still be watched, closely.”

  “Oh,” Abigail said.

  She scowled. It looked like privacy was going to be a thing of the past; hell, she’d had more privacy on the alien command ship. But then, compared to what she’d expected to face after the aliens finally caught on to her double game, she was in heaven. What was a little nakedness compared to being turned into an alien slave, so badly warped that she wouldn't even know that she should resist?

  Or a drooling idiot, like the VP, she thought, grimly.

  They were shown into a small bedroom, the cuffs were removed and they were left alone. “You did fine,” Nicolas assured her, as soon as the door was audibly locked. “I’ve known people who would have been horrified at such an ... intrusive physical search.”

  Abigail winced as she sat down. “I know how they feel,” she said. “Where are we?”

  Nicolas shrugged. “One of the secret government bunkers, I assume,” he said. “We’re not that far from Washington DC. A bunker or two up here would be easy to hide, even from the locals. If nuclear war broke out, someone from the government would be sent here to hide and take command in the event of everyone above him being killed.”

  “Oh,” Abigail said. Her eyes opened wide. “Does that mean that the President is here?”

  “I rather doubt it,” Nicolas admitted. “They wouldn't have brought us here if the President was here too. Even if they believed us without an examination, we could easily be carrying a surveillance bug or two on our bodies, if it was a trick. If humans can make bugs so small that they can barely be seen with the naked eye, I’d bet that the aliens could make them a whole lot smaller.”

  He nodded towards the bathroom. “Go have a shower and a nap,” he ordered. “We could be here for some time.”

  Abigail nodded and obeyed.

  ***

  It was several hours later – after Abigail had finally dropped off into an uncomfortable sleep – that the door opened, revealing four men wearing masks. Nicolas didn't recognise them personally, but he recognised the grim assurance that they were the best of the best common to Special Forces operators all around the world. Knowing that the following interrogation was likely to be unpleasant, be bade a silent farewell to the sleeping Abigail and allowed the men to lead him outside the room and down a concrete corridor.

  “Here,” one of them grunted, passing him a pair of silk pyjamas. “Wear these.”

  Nicolas rolled his eyes. The silk outfit would allow him to keep his dignity, while preventing him from going unnoticed anywhere in the complex. On the other hand, if he meant harm, he could easily knock someone out and take their uniform for himself ... pulling it on, he decided that at least they were taking security seriously. Once he was dressed, they opened another door and pushed him into a small office. A man, wearing yet another mask, sat on the other side of the desk.

  “Sir,” Nicolas said.

  The man pulled off his mask, revealing a craggy face that Nicolas recognised from BUD/S. Colonel Oldham had been one of their supervisors – and, although he’d been too old for active service, he’d been supervising black ops in Afghanistan while the war wound down.

  “Little,” Colonel Oldham said. “I think we can be reasonably sure that you’re not under alien control, but are you their willing collaborator?”

  “No,” Nicolas snapped. “Sir, I ...”

  “I have to ask,” the Colonel pointed out. “Almost everyone who has gone into an alien POW facility has either come out ... changed or simply never been seen again. The only exceptions are people who have been liberated by our forces, in the early days of the occupation. And now you.”

  “They let me go,” Nicolas said. “Sir, this changes everything.”

  Colonel Oldham settled back in his chair. “Then make your report, son,” he ordered. “Tell me what happened since you were captured. And, coming to think of it, what happened to get you captured?”

  Nicolas hesitated, then ran through the entire story, starting with the alien attack on the resistance camp and his decision to seek sanctuary with Greg and his daughter. Oldham’s expression didn't change, even when Nicolas admitted that he’d been betrayed. Nicolas honestly hadn't realised that the resistance hadn't known what had happened to him, or how he’d been captured. If he hadn't contacted them himself, they might never have suspected a thing ...

  And then they would have shot me when I tried to explain, he thought, as he talked about the alien rebels and how he’
d made contact with them. That would have been a sorry end.

  “So,” Colonel Oldham said. “You’re thinking that these aliens are actually on the level?”

  Nicolas hesitated, then nodded.

  “Indeed,” Colonel Oldham said. “And is it not equally likely that they might be setting you up to betray the rest of us?”

  “I was not implanted,” Nicolas pointed out, sharply. “Nor was Abigail.”

  “On first-name terms with a reporter?” Colonel Oldham asked. “Dear me! It must be love.”

  Nicolas, realising that the Colonel was trying to irritate him, kept his temper under firm control. “She was there too,” he insisted. “They exposed themselves to her too.”

  The Colonel pretended not to hear. “A reporter and a SEAL,” he said. “It sounds like the plot of a bad romantic comedy.”

  His expression shifted with staggering speed. “Are you sure that they’re on the level?”

  “Yes,” Nicolas said, flatly.

  “Why?”

  Nicolas took a moment to gather his thoughts. “They could have killed both of us, or tried to turn us both into Walking Dead,” he said. “Abigail would have made an excellent propagandist and helped them to round up the underground newspapers. I would have made a good recruit for the Order Police. Or they could have just shoved us into a POW camp and left us to rot. I think they took one hell of a risk making contact the way they did ...”

  “Not as much as you might think,” Colonel Oldham said. “They could have just dropped you overboard if it hadn't worked out.”

  “I don’t think it would have been that easy,” Nicolas said. “From what they told us of how their network works, rerouting a couple of prisoners might well have been noticed.”

  “Yeah,” Colonel Oldham said. “But let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. You may believe what you’re telling me, but your new friends are actually lying to you. Would you recognise a lie when you were told it?”