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

by Christopher Nuttall

  Pepper had a more practical take on the matter. “Is there any way we can detect these poor bastards?”

  “I don’t know,” Jones admitted. “We know that x-raying a normal Walking Dead man’s head reveals the implants – the aliens either don’t or can’t conceal them from us. We also know that monitoring their brainwaves often reveals the presence of an implant directing their thoughts. But without proper equipment, I don’t see how we can find them.”

  The President frowned, then smiled. “What about those prototype lie detectors they were experimenting with before the aliens arrived?”

  Pepper blinked in surprise. “They didn't work,” she reminded him. “As long as someone remained reasonably calm, it was impossible to prove that they were lying ...”

  “But they did provide a way to monitor brainwaves,” the President said. “Could we have a few produced here, or maybe located in the States?”

  “There is another problem,” Jones said. “What if the implants were only active part of the time? The victim might not be aware of their presence – and there would be nothing in their brainwaves to suggest otherwise.”

  “We have to try,” the President said. “Because the alternative is surrendering.”

  He scowled. If they’d faced a normal human enemy, he might have considered surrender – there would have been a future, however restricted. But the Rogue Leaders intended to reduce all of humanity to helpless slaves, eradicating even the slightest hope of resistance as they reshaped the human race to fit their plans. There was no way he could surrender and just give up, even though the odds had just tipped sharply against humanity. Maybe there was a solution and they just hadn't realised it yet.

  Pepper touched his arm, lightly. “Do you want to tell the other resistance leaders about this?”

  The President swallowed a curse. There was a simple way to prevent suspicion and paranoia from spreading through the resistance. All he had to do was refrain from telling them what had happened at Area 52. But that would leave the leadership completely ignorant of the greatest danger they’d yet faced, although there was little they could do about it. And if they found out, it would destroy their faith in the united leadership – and the President himself.

  Once, he'd been backed up by the whole weight of American society. Even those who had disliked him had recognised that he was the President, the chief executive of the American nation, the Head of State as well as the Head of Government. But that was gone now; his authority was very limited, if only because he had no way to compel obedience. The resistance leadership wasn't all ex-military, men and women who had gone underground because the alternative was going into an alien camp. Some of the others had regarded Washington with as much fear and loathing as they regarded the aliens.

  “If we tell them,” Jones said, “we will just cause a panic. There’s little they can do about it, particularly if the alien victims are unaware of what happened to them.”

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” the President admitted, slowly. “But we’ll have to warn them that there’s no easy way to detect the presence of one of these new Walking Dead.”

  Pepper smiled, humourlessly. “We can sweep everyone here, for a start, and everyone at the other bunkers,” she said. “And maybe the resistance members can use private x-ray machines to check themselves. How many clinics are there outside the cities with their own x-ray facilities?”

  The President smiled. “Thank you,” he said, resisting the urge to kiss her. “That might just save the resistance from destroying itself.”

  Jones nodded. “Oldham noted that Judith Dent was out of contact for at least five hours,” he said. “That would seem to give us a minimum time period for the aliens to implant someone and check that the implants bedded in properly. They wouldn't want to release someone who was on the verge of becoming a drooling idiot.”

  “True,” the President agreed. Quite a few people had gone into alien clutches and simply vanished. According to the alien rebels, the implantation process failed roughly one fifth of the time, although the Rogue Leaders were constantly improving their techniques. “That would be far too revealing.”

  He thought, briefly, of poor Jacob Thornton. They’d been friends as well as political allies; he’d deserved better than to end up an alien slave, if indeed he was still alive. No one had seen him for weeks, as far as the resistance could determine. The President had wondered if the liberation process the alien rebels had developed could do anything for his old friend, but they hadn't been sure when the resistance had asked. There was no way to know what had gone wrong with the original implantation that had turned him into a moron.

  “We’ll pass on the warning,” he concluded. “Now ... what could the aliens have pulled from the wreckage of Area 52.”

  “Nothing,” Jones said, with some assurance. “The nuke detonated – and the complex was designed to ensure that most of the blast went upwards, vaporising the entire base. Everything should have been destroyed, from computer records to the alien craft itself; we wiped the files beforehand as an additional precaution. And we caught a number of alien warriors in the blast.”

  The President smiled. “How many?”

  “Several hundred, we believe,” Jones said. “We may never know for certain.”

  He cleared his throat. “The bottom line,” he added, “is that the base was completely destroyed. They shouldn't have been able to recover anything that might lead them further up the chain towards us.”

  “I hope you’re right,” the President said, tartly. Losing Area 52 was a nasty blow; even if most of the scientists had survived, it would take weeks to transport them to RAF Machrihanish or another research station somewhere in the States. And then there were the old concerns about losing control over any scientific discoveries from research into alien technology ...

  He shook his head. They could worry about that when America was a free country once again.

  “For the moment, the former research crew have been hidden in Texas,” Jones explained. “We’re currently looking at options for getting them out of the state altogether, but that will be tricky.”

  “Yes,” Pepper said, dryly. “Tell me – what did they find out that led them to Area 52?”

  Jones looked at her, puzzled. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said. “They learned about the hidden base ...”

  “Assuming that Oldham is right,” Pepper said, “Judith was implanted at the same time as Mannington was burned to the ground.” She shared a guilty glance with the President. “And they didn't use her to destroy that resistance cell immediately, did they? They preferred to bide their time and see what she saw. What made them change their mind and attack Area 52? Judith should have had no idea that the base was even there, let alone what it held.”

  The President saw where she was going. “You mean she could have seen the alien doctor?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Pepper said. “And if that is the case, they’re going to start looking for someone missing from their population.”

  The President felt his blood run cold. “There’s no way they will assume that we simply took a prisoner?”

  “Yes, but then they will start wondering where the prisoner actually came from,” Pepper pointed out, sharply. “And then they might realise that they have a real mystery on their hands and, eventually, start uncovering the alien rebels. We need to warn them.”

  “We need to move our own plans forward,” the President said. “Give them some time to hide themselves.”

  “If they can,” Pepper said, grimly. “Their society is wired to a degree that far outstrips the worst of our own.”

  “Then we warn them and hope that they know how to hide,” the President said. “And then we continue preparing for the final battle.”

  He looked up at the wall-mounted chart. “Has there been any further progress?”

  “Some,” Jones said. “We’re now fairly sure we know where most of the Rogue Leaders are – they’re on the
command ships. Most of the other leaders, the ones who don’t know what’s going on, have been distributed over the alien settlements. All we have to do is kill the Rogue Leaders ...”

  “Sure,” the President said. “That’s all we have to do.”

  ***

  “Easier said than done,” the Prime Minister said, after he had arrived at the base and had been carefully briefed. “And we may be running out of time.”

  The President scowled. “We are?”

  “Our Ambassador in Washington has been informed that he will be called to face the alien representative tomorrow,” the Prime Minister said. “I suspect that they want us to sweat a little before they start issuing their demands. Overall ... it doesn't look good.”

  “True,” the President agreed. “What has the War Cabinet said about it?”

  “There was a great deal of debate in the bunker,” the Prime Minister admitted. “We suspect that we’ll get the same demand they gave Israel; disarm and surrender, or get crushed. If that happens, we will have to choose very quickly. So far, the votes are leaning towards fighting, but not if there’s no prospect of victory.”

  The President gave him a sharp look. “Don't they know what is at stake?”

  “Of course they know,” the Prime Minister said. “They’re just looking at what the aliens did to your country – and Israel – and wondering if it is really worth sending British boys and girls out to die for the sake of honour.”

  “Politicians,” the President grumbled.

  They shared a chuckle.

  “Overall, it looks like we will have to fight,” the Prime Minister said, when they had finished laughing. “So far, they haven’t made any demands concerning Torchwood – or you – but we think that is only a matter of time. They must wonder what happened to some of the other craft you downed during the fighting.”

  “They couldn't all have gone to Area 52,” the President agreed. “And not all of them exploded when they were shot down.”

  He scowled at the reminder – yet again – of the true inhumanity of their foe. A human POW could hope for freedom; he might be rescued, or he might be traded back to the enemy in a prisoner exchange. But the Rogue Leaders had made sure that none of their personnel would fall into human hands; every dead alien had had his or her brain liquefied by a suicide implant. There had only been one known survivor.

  They’d been luckier with the alien craft. Several had been recovered and shipped to Britain as part of a fallback plan the President had never really expected to have to use. The British had moved them to RAF Machrihanish, where they were being studied ... but the aliens had to have a rough idea of where they’d gone. The fact that they had chosen to ignore the downed craft, so far, was odd. It made the President wonder if the aliens were weaker than the human race had believed.

  But the more of their own kind they get involved, the more questions the Rogue Leaders would face, he thought, remembering the briefing on alien society. They might even be hit by a rebellion from within their ranks.

  “Anything you can do to distract them would be a good thing,” the Prime Minister said, softly. “We need more time.”

  “We all need time,” the President muttered. Given a year or two, he was sure that the remaining human powers could put together a significant challenge to the aliens. They could duplicate the alien drives as well as their weapons technology, using them to hit the aliens in space as well as on the ground. “But we’re working on a plan.”

  “Glad to hear it,” the Prime Minister said. He grinned, suddenly. “Does it involve flying a craft up into orbit, docking with the alien mothership and blowing it to smithereens?”

  The President laughed. “No,” he said, deadpan. “It involves using an alien with two hearts and a sonic screwdriver to tell them that Earth is protected and they’d better get lost before he gets angry.”

  They’d actually considered using the alien craft to fly to orbit, but outside of a bad movie it wasn't going to happen. The craft that had crashed on Earth were damaged, beyond humanity’s capability to repair, and even if they had been usable they would still have been connected to the alien datanet. Instead of being allowed to dock with the mothership, they would have been redirected to somewhere isolated and then blown apart by alien fighter craft.

  Or, if the aliens had wanted to take prisoners, they would have been forced to land somewhere where the alien warriors could corral the pilots before they could escape.

  He shook his head, tiredly. The news about Judith Dent was already spreading through the internet and the reactions ranged from panic to outright paranoia. Anyone could have been implanted; anyone who might have been alone for more than a few hours was under suspicion, even though most of them were almost certainly innocent. Hell, Judith had been innocent too, the President reminded himself. There was no reason for her to be blamed for what had happened to her, or what the aliens had forced her to do.

  The alien rebels had made a very specific request when the resistance had contacted them and admitted that Theta, currently hiding in a safe house in Texas, might have been seen. It was so specific that the President suspected that the rebels had had a contingency plan in place all along, although it depended on the human resistance doing most of the heavy lifting. They might not have had any choice, he knew. The alien rebels didn't have much military power of their own, certainly not when compared to the Rogue Leaders.

  Hit the alien breeding complex in Wyoming, the President thought. Rescue the pregnant girls, if possible, and destroy most of the alien habitation complex. Don’t try to kidnap any of the aliens, just kill as many as you can before you have to run.

  He shuddered. In all of his time as President, he had never willingly given orders that would get unsuspecting Americans killed ... certainly not at the hands of other states, no matter how friendly. It was just another reminder of just how fundamentally alien the aliens actually were. He could never have condoned such an operation.

  But the alien rebels had done it without a second thought.

  They’re desperate, he thought. They don’t have a choice.

  “We may be short on time,” he said, “but at least we can try to keep the bastards busy.”

  “Yes,” the Prime Minister agreed. He frowned, suddenly. “And what happens if we can’t move in for the kill?”

  Chapter Thirty

  Washington DC, USA

  Day 236

  General Dave Howery had hated the numbness in his face right up until he faced the collaborator government for the first time since his liberation from alien slavery. The memories he had from when he'd been one of the Walking Dead utterly failed to convey the sheer strength of the emotional reaction he felt as soon as he saw them – but then, he hadn't felt much of anything while his implants had been working properly. Now, he wanted to strangle them all with his bare hands.

  None of them gave a damn about America, not unless it helped them to boost their own petty power bases. Daisy Fairchild might have been the worst of the bunch, according to Karen, but the others weren't much better. They looked more like the villains from Atlas Shrugged than governors; hell, even the first provisional government of Iraq had looked more dignified than the alien collaborators!

  If his face had been mobile, he wouldn't have been able to hide his reaction, he realised as he sat down. Each of them was responsible for untold misery, for inflicting pain and suffering on their fellow Americans, for making the stresses and strains caused by alien occupation a thousand times worse. They’d released prisoners from jail and inducted them into the Order Police, they’d helped register their countrymen like cattle ... and they’d moved them around the country to suit their alien masters. Compared to that, Benedict Arnold had been a piker. And at least Arnold had had a working brain. No one could say that about half of the collaborator government.

  “The most urgent matter at hand comes from the nuclear detonation in Nevada,” Daisy Fairchild said, without preamble. “The mushroom cloud was seen for
miles around and word is already spreading. People are starting to panic.”

  Dave snorted, inwardly. Most of what everyone knew about nuclear detonations was simply inaccurate. There was no cloud of radioactivity spreading out from where the bomb had detonated and heading, as if it were a living thing, towards the nearest population centres. It had been a clean blast, according to the aliens, although no one knew for sure if they could be trusted completely. Still, even if the bomb had been dirty, it hadn't been in position to spit thousands of tons of radioactive ash into the atmosphere.

  “Then we tell them that there is no danger,” Sharon Greenland said. The Director of Public Information looked smug, even though her last two predecessors had been hauled off by the Order Police for allowing the wrong sort of information to go on the airwaves. “They should believe us if we are honest.”

  Dave wondered, inwardly, if she was really as stupid as she sounded – or if it was all an act intended to convince the others to underestimate her. Of all of them, Sharon’s position was the weakest, if only because she hadn't had the time to build up her own power base. And, of course, there was the fate of her predecessors to worry about. She knew she was weak ...

  “For some reason,” Daisy pointed out sweetly, “they don’t believe what we tell them. They think we’re liars.”

  It was harder still to conceal his reaction to that comment, Dave realised. America had once had hundreds of television and radio stations, to say nothing of an endless series of blogs that provided the context that was often missing from the mainstream media. Now, there was just a handful of television stations and – in theory – no radio stations at all. Daytime chat radio had clearly not pleased the aliens or, more likely, some of their collaborators. Maybe that wouldn't have been a disaster, apart from the fact that everyone knew that everything that went on the airwaves was carefully censored by the aliens. There was nothing, for example, about the insurgency at all. At best, they were described as bandits and dead-enders.