Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

  Timmy, Jorge, and Zeek looked at each other for an uncomfort-

  able amount of time. Grissom’s eyes scanned the room as he waited for

  an answer.

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  Timmy inhaled deeply. “Sounds good, Major. We need all the help we can get.”

  The major looked at Timmy for a moment, gave him a slight half-nod

  and turned to leave, issuing commands into the radio.

  “I need this data, you rubbernecks!” Zeek yelled at those frozen in the

  room. Like magic, the room came back to life as people continued talking,

  splicing cables and returning to their work.

  Jorge reconsidered Timmy for a moment. Their eyes met, and Jorge

  grew a slight smile.

  * * *

  “That’s not the half of it. I was reviewing the old Zorn footage of when we

  first had contact with them. Take a look at this.” Dr. Swoon stood out of

  the way, and Amanda drew close to the screen.

  Zorn drones scurried out of the landed pod towards Kalibri’s ship.

  Despite having seen it a dozen times already, Amanda noticed one of the

  drones detach something from its leg and put it on the door. Moments

  later, it exploded.

  “I’m thinking the Zorn don’t see right, plus they like to barge their way

  into ships. They always use their legs to gain entry. Why use a bomb? How

  does that make sense?” Dr. Swoon waited a moment.

  Amanda rewound the tape a few seconds. “It almost seems like it’s not

  the same kind of drone as the other one.”

  “Exactly. That one’s legs is at least fifty percent thinner and a tad

  shorter.” Dr Swoon stood up to stretch his legs and took a stroll around

  the room.

  “I wonder what makes that one different?”

  “Amanda… We gotta go!” Dr. Swoon stood at the nearby window,

  looking twenty levels down at a Zorn drone as it attacked an approaching

  bus. He watched as the other buses fled in reverse, crashing into a building.

  “Help me with this!” Amanda shouted. She was attempting to lift a

  small four-inch-thick piece of bulkhead that had a Zorn leg through the

  middle, trying to get the thing onto a nearby cart.

  Swoon ran over, and with his help, they managed to lift the chunk of

  bulkhead onto the pushcart.

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  “It secretes acid as the appendage meets resistance,” Amanda said excitedly. “That’s partly how it pierces metal so easily. Given the fact they don’t eat and have short lifespans, I’d say the more it uses this ability, the faster it dies.”

  “Really? Is that what those microtubes are for, secreting acid?”

  Gunfire erupted outside. They turned towards the window on the other

  side of the room.

  “We need to move faster!” Amanda said.

  “Oh, damn… The buses!” Swoon murmured as he left the cart in the

  door and paced the hallway.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Go look outside.”

  Amanda pushed the cart into the hallway and ran to the nearest window.

  She looked down. She watched in horror as the front end of a bus torn

  open. A few soldiers circled a freshly-killed drone, another drone sprinting

  to their location.

  “Fudge!” Amanda turned back towards the cart and pushed it as fast as

  she could down the long hallway. She pushed the cart into an elevator and

  froze at the control board as Swoon came in right behind her.

  “Up or down?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Down?” Amanda said weakly and slowly raised her hand to push

  the button.

  “N-n-n-no. We’ll get killed down there.”

  The elevator door closed.

  “Up?” Amanda slightly moved her hand for the top floor button and

  hesitated. “There’s nowhere to go up there. We’ll be sitting ducks,” she

  said faintly.

  Swoon slid down against the wall and started crying, shaking his head.

  “Don’t touch it. Just…don’t, please.”

  Gunfire erupted below them, and the elevator shaft carried the sound

  up to them. They could hear faint screams amongst the bangs.

  Their eyes met in terror. Amanda was already winded, but had

  hardly moved.

  “Most of the people were waiting for buses on the bottom floor.” She

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  looked at Swoon, who continued to shake his head, his frown wide, big and slobbery. “We are going up.”

  She reached out to push the button and just before she did, the eleva-

  tor moved.

  “No-no-nonononono.” She hit the button for the top floor. A couple

  of seconds passed as she watched the elevator floor number drop to sixteen,

  fifteen. Her heart pounded, and her hands shook. She looked around the

  elevator, oblivious to Swoon’s open sobbing. She was about to concede that

  there was nothing she could do about it when she saw it.

  Without thinking, she hit the button for the emergency stop button.

  The elevator came to an abrupt halt. More gunfire echoed up, along

  with various people screaming. She looked up the elevator display, but it

  gave no digital indication as to the floor number.

  “Help me,” she said, looking to him, but Swoon didn’t move.

  She rolled her eyes and grunted then, with a bit of effort, she managed

  to pry open the elevator door with a pair of forceps she’d tossed into a small box on the bottom of the cart.

  She revealed a cement wall up to her knees, the elevator door above it,

  a large ‘6’ painted on the wall. It looked remarkably less stimulating on this side of the door. Something about the door having a great, appealing design

  on one side and a forgotten but functional backside really bothered her.

  More gunfire erupted and she grunted angrily as she pried open the

  other door with her bare hands. They didn’t require a lot of force, and she

  was a bit startled by that.

  She jumped up onto the floor and reached out for Swoon’s hand. He

  was quick to take it, and she helped pull him up. Then she hesitated as she

  looked at the piece of bulkhead left behind in the elevator.

  “You don’t need it, it’s enough that we know how it works,” Dr.

  Swoon said.

  Realizing he was right, she turned and ran down the hallway towards

  the back side of the building. She opened the door to the stairwell.

  The amount of noise coming from the nearby stairwell created an

  atmosphere that was both chaotic and boisterous. She barely understood

  what was being said, but the emotion in the voices was chaos. Utter panic

  and terror.

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  A middle-aged man that looked far too familiar ran up the stairs towards her floor with tears running down his face.

  “Faster!” he cried out as he passed Amanda and continued up. The

  sight of a young woman in a UEF uniform missing the jacket made them

  jerk back in surprise as she bolted up towards them, panting heavily.

  “Don’t—l-leave m-me, Robert!” she yelled through starved lungs,

  trying to catch up with her boyfriend.

  Amanda stumbled; gunfire from within the stairwell stunned her as her

  ears rang. She fell to the floor, hitting her head on the wall.

  Time passed, though Amanda couldn’t tell how much before her ears

  stopped. She looked around, remembering Swoon, but he was nowhere to

&
nbsp; be seen. Someone burst through the door in front of her and tripped over

  her where she lay.

  It was another young woman, missing her shoes and blouse. She

  bounced back up onto her feet with amazing agility and ran down one of

  the two hallways away from that stairwell, barely even looking back at her.

  Still half dazed, Amanda stood and ran to follow her. “Hey!”

  The woman ignored her, continuing to bolt. Amanda followed the

  woman through the corridors and up many different sets of stairs, but she

  was steadily losing distance to the woman.

  “Hey!” Amanda tried again, reaching out for her, but the young women

  ignored her, turning another corner ahead.

  Amanda could hear the familiar sounds of a Zorn’s legs piercing metal

  and concrete behind her. She turned back, trying to spot the drone down

  the long hallway, but there was nothing. She was so preoccupied with look-

  ing for the drone that she nearly ran right into the woman who was now

  still, staring straight forward in horror.

  Amanda stumbled past the woman and fell against the thick metal rail-

  ing that prevented her from falling six floors to the main entrance foyer.

  “Oh my god!” the young women sobbed as she looked down towards

  a group of people lying in the foyer. Some of them were torn up, some of

  them seemed whole, some looked like they were shot.

  Amanda stared at the sight below, nursing her shoulder. It still hurt

  from where she hit the railing, and the long run through the building

  didn’t help.

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  “Parents?” Amanda asked, glancing at the woman and the down at the dead bodies below. One of the men looked familiar. In fact, she was sure it

  was Dillon.

  The crying woman slowly shook her head as silent tears fell from

  her face.

  Amanda thought briefly about Alex as she stood up. A group of soldiers

  caught her attention below, entering the building with careful eagerness as

  they stepped over and around the bodies, their guns up and searching.

  “Hey, we’re up here!” Amanda shouted, waving one arm frantically.

  The soldiers pointed their guns upwards, and Amanda shrank back a

  little, as did the woman. The soldiers dropped their guns back to eye level

  when they recognized the women as human. Only the squad commander

  kept looking up at them, though his eyes kept scanning the floors around

  the women.

  “Can you come down to us?”

  “We can move, but those things are still in the building,” Amanda yelled.

  “Okay, then we’ll come to you. Just stay where you are.”

  The squad headed towards the stairwell below where Amanda and the

  woman stood, their guns up and scouting. They made it to within a few

  feet of the door before they froze, their focus on the floor above her.

  A large, black appendage descended from the floor above, reaching

  towards the floor where the pair of women stood, followed by another leg.

  The Zorn was traversing the floors, spider-like, in the large, open area above the lobby. Amanda glanced down at the soldiers, her eyes wide in fear.

  She grabbed the woman’s arm and yanked her down as the men below

  opened fire.

  Bits of Zorn, ceiling, glass and other debris rained down from above.

  The women managed to roll away quickly, doing what they could to escape

  the gunfire and the falling debris.

  The drone leaped away from the railing and down into the middle of

  the squad of soldiers, its long, limbs flailing about amongst them.

  Amanda got up on her hands and feet and looked around for the

  woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. Amanda ran into the nearest office.

  The office space was decorated with UEF posters, uniform jackets, pic-

  tures of events and tables full of swag. Amanda stumbled and fell to the

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  floor. She reached up and felt the back of her head, which stung with pain.

  She realized it was covered in blood, and blood snaked its way down the

  back of her shirt. Despite feeling dizzy, she struggled to her feet, leaning

  heavily against the desk. She scooted back against a nearby wall, under a

  table not nearly large enough to cover her body. Looking around at her

  other options, she found herself disappointed.

  The glass office door opened slowly and a Zorn leg inched into sight.

  “We’re coming, stay there!” someone yelled from the foyer below.

  Despite knowing that they couldn’t see her, she nodded, still watching

  the Zorn drone as it slowly crept into the room. Amanda tilted her head,

  watching the drone, doing some quick observations as she waited. This

  drone was half the size of the others.

  If fear was a person, she felt its tight embrace.

  Several ideas crossed her mind, and she slowly inhaled to quiet her

  breathing. An odd sound came from the drone, like a low whistle. The

  Zorn adjusted position and, without any hesitation, plunged its nearest leg

  towards her.

  Amanda looked down at the sleek black appendage sprouting from the

  middle of her chest. The pain was gone, distant somehow, the leg frozen

  in place. The scent of her perfume suddenly became very noticeable,

  almost overwhelming.

  “Smell!” she mumbled, staring straight ahead but not really seeing it.

  Panicked, the drone stabbed her again and again, until all was silent.

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  Chapter 15

  A Perfect Mystery

  TIMMY WATCHED THE display screen in the TIC, carefully moni-

  toring details that the ground teams reported and occasionally provided

  much-needed information to a team or other unit. No new information

  was coming from anyone in space, and he was concerned for the welfare of

  his friends. Kalibri’s message that he was about to be killed struck everyone

  to the core, and it was paralyzing.

  The screen blinked with a new message, causing Timmy to adjust

  before he could focus to read it.

  Routed message—To command

  team; Hey… That object that we

  talked about, in the tunnel that we

  couldn’t finish? It lit up.

  A picture appeared on his screen. It showed the perfectly round sphere,

  now covered in highlighted glyphs. Timmy jumped out of his chair and ran

  out of the command center.

  “Timmy?” Jorge called after him, concern and curiosity in his voice.

  Timmy ignored him, running down a long hallway towards the travel

  area. As soon as he entered the larger cavern common area, he jumped into

  the nearest golf cart and zipped down the roadway towards the tunnel that was blocked off, hiding the unique object.

  The tunnel curved in various directions, as it avoided most other tunnel

  sections, though it sometimes intersected with one or two. The tunnel

  Timmy drove down continued in a generally-upward direction, towards

  the surface. It surprised Timmy how deep the command center was, as he

  figured he must have risen twenty floors by now. He made a right turn, and

  another right not too far after.

  He arrived at a mouth of the tunnel, a small team of UEF security guys

  sitting in fold-out chairs, surrounding a small table. A lengthy card game

  was in progress, the soldiers barely glancing at Timmy, then aba
ndoning

  their game to stand at attention.

  “Hello, sir, coming to do more research today?” the closest soldier asked.

  “When are we going to get relieved… sir!” another soldier asked, with-

  out waiting for a response to the first.

  Timmy returned his awkward question with an odd stare. Before the

  nearest soldier could speak, the other spoke again. “We’ve been here for two

  shifts now, approaching our third, sir!”

  “Don’t you guys have radios?” Timmy asked, glancing at several stacked

  under the small table.

  “Those are simple walkie-talkies, they don’t work in this area. Not sure

  why,” the nearest man said.

  Timmy looked up and wondered how close they were to the surface.

  The man in front of him followed his gaze and said, “Twenty feet and

  you’d hit sunshine.”

  “Do you guys know what is happening?” Timmy asked, curious and uneasy.

  “No…What’s happening?”

  The nearest UEF soldier turned to face the obviously-younger one. “I

  dare you to speak out of turn again.”

  The young man returned a hard glare, but after a moment, looked

  down. “I am sorry, sir, you were saying?”

  Timmy considered telling them now, but letting them panic alone in

  the tunnels wasn’t too smart either. “You guys can go before you get…rack

  time…That’s what you call it, right?”

  They nodded, equal parts curiosity and unease crossing their faces. The

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  younger man glanced at the others, then at Timmy, and gave him a questioning look.

  “Go to the TIC and get a status update.”

  The men looked at each other, still confused. Timmy smiled and

  shook his head. “Go to the command center. You’ll learn all you need to

  know there.”

  “Yes, sir,” the first soldier said, and moved towards the small table. “You

  heard him, time to go home. Pack your gear.”

  Timmy watched from his golf cart as the men packed away the table

  and chairs into the back of a large truck, then quickly drove away at a reck-

  less pace.

  Timmy considered if speed limit signs might be prudent in the tunnel,

  then he chuckled to himself over the idiotic thought. Who would enforce it?

  He continued in the opposite direction, deeper into the tunnel. As he

  approached, he was amazed to see the new set up that the two scientists cre-