Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

ated for themselves in the small not-quite-cavern. Several tables with odd items looked more like a garage sale than a field research center. A small generator, which was not running, various lights on high poles, boxes and several recording cameras littered the closest table. There was even a cot off to one side.

  “You guys have been busy, I see.”

  The two scientists didn’t turn or give any indication that they heard

  Timmy speak. As Timmy stepped closer to the now-colorful orb, he could

  hear them speaking to each other.

  “It’s not that, they don’t repeat.”

  “Surely they repeat. How can you tell? There’s so many of them.”

  “Pick one and see if you recognize it again. I’ve done it for a while now.

  It doesn’t happen.”

  “Hi,” Timmy said with wonderment, his face appearing right between

  the two scientists as all three faced the orb.

  “Hi,” they both said in unison but didn’t turn away from the orb.

  The orb was still black, yet hundreds of symbols spun around its sur-

  face in a confusing and ever-changing pattern. The symbols traveled around

  the orb, never touching each other but acting like water ripples. Timmy

  watched them as they swirled, and never recognized a pattern or symbol

  return a second time.

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  “Mathematically, it’s impossible.”

  “What do you mean?” Timmy asked.

  “Well, each glyph uses a square inch of space. How many unique but

  still identifiable squiggle marks can you make before you end up repeating

  a pattern?”

  The glyphs didn’t stay the same color either. The colors shifted between

  yellow, blue and green, more green than the other colors. Timmy thought he

  saw a purple one, but the symbols were gone too quickly for him to be sure.

  “What does it mean?” Timmy asked, frozen like a stone.

  “Hell if we know. This is like going to be the hardest thing to translate,

  ever. We can’t compare it to anything. It’s just too different, and we don’t

  have any way to obtain a cipher. To make it more challenging, we have to

  consider things like if the meaning of a symbol changes based on its direc-

  tion of travel.”

  Timmy continued to watch in wonder as the glyphs moved around in

  slow curves. Each glyph would appear from behind the rock wall, traverse

  the visible surface and dip behind the other side, still hidden by rock.

  One glyph caught his attention. It looked like three eights woven

  together, two in parallel and one perpendicular. The glyph stopped moving.

  This drew his curiosity even more, but he didn’t move a muscle as he waited

  for something to happen.

  “Hey, that one stopped moving,” one of the scientists said. Timmy

  looked to see what glyph he was talking about and followed his finger.

  “Hey, it’s gone!” the same man said.

  “What’s gone?” the other one asked.

  “There was a glyph, and it stopped moving, but then disappeared.”

  The other scientist was skeptical, but he was concentrating on the need

  to save and file recordings of the surface. He leaned over one of the com-

  puters, watching the screen in front of him as it relayed the last few min-

  utes’ worth of recording to him.

  Timmy continued to watch the orb, and again the same glyph appeared.

  Once more, Timmy focused on it, and it stopped moving.

  “There it is again!”

  This time, Timmy didn’t look away. The scientist reached out and tried

  to touch the glyph.

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  “Nothing, just… smooth as glass.”

  Timmy shifted his eyes just a bit, and the glyph moved to follow his

  line of sight. Timmy caught on quick and moved his eye all across the sur-

  face of the orb. His glyph traversed the visible surface, moving over other

  glyphs to keep up with his eye movement.

  “Wow!” the other scientist said, staring at the ball with bulging eyes.

  “It’s following my eyes,” Timmy said.

  “Huh.” One of the two men turned on another camera and zoomed in

  on Timmy’s face while he played around with the glyph.

  Timmy stepped forward, closer to the ball, of a mind to touch it. As soon

  as he touched the glyph, it grew twice as large and was accompanied by six

  other glyphs, all of which were constantly morphing in a stationary location.

  One of the scientists holding the pen behind Timmy dropped it. The

  three of them were so silent that Timmy could hear it rattling across the

  stone floor.

  “What do I do?” Timmy asked them, not taking his eyes from it.

  The glyphs suddenly turned red, growing brighter in intensity until

  they flashed red several times. Feeling the need to turn away from the

  blinding light, Timmy began to lift his hand to block the light from his

  eyes, the orb went dark and returned to its still, dull self.

  “What hap—”

  A thunderous explosion knocked them staggering, and all the lights

  went out. The air became thick with dust particulates in the utter black-

  ness, making it hard to breathe and see. Timmy’s mouth was suddenly dry,

  his eyes stung terribly and, after the rumbling stopped, all he could do was

  cough for several moments, trying to breathe as the dust settled.

  Moments later, one of the scientists lifted the light of his cell phone

  into the darkness.

  “Are you okay?” someone asked.

  Timmy pulled out his phone and activated its torch function. The

  once-smooth tunnel road was now covered with dirt and chunks of rock

  debris. Timmy slowly made his way to where his cart was parked, passing

  several boxes, the cot and the three downed electric lights, their bulbs shat-

  tered across the ground.

  As Timmy drew closer to the exit, the dirt and debris grew in size to the

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  point he had to climb to proceed further and as he continued, the two scientists behind him followed with cell phones to light their way. He looked

  left and right, summarizing that the tunnel was completely blocked off in

  every direction.

  Timmy reached the top of the mound and touched the obstruction,

  and as soon as he touched the surface, he knew exactly what it was: the

  undeniable surface of rough exoskeleton.

  Timmy quickly withdrew his hand and stumbled back, tripping over

  himself as he rolled down the pile and onto the stone floor.

  “What, what is it?” one of the scientists asked, lifting their torch higher.

  Timmy coughed for another moment, the air still heavy with dust and

  dirt. “That’s a Zorn pod.”

  * * *

  Alex walked across the hanger bay. Where the Raziya used to be now sat

  rows of cargo containers. Some were being modified and welded together,

  chairs bolted into some, while others were getting smooth floors for easy

  cargo transfers. Stepping into one of the containers, he noticed a LED rope

  lighting on the inside. A few batteries were bolted down on the far side of

  the wall, along with a custom-built desk and chair.

  A few technicians were walking with Alex, taking notes of his comments.

  “Grind this decking down here at the edge; we need cargo to be able to

  slide in and out of the container, on wooden pallets even.”

  “Well, sir, ca
n’t we just equip each container with a pallet jack?”

  “We don’t have enough. Just round out this edge, and if we get enough

  jacks, we’ll use them.”

  Alex walked further into the container and noticed the haphazardly-

  installed single seat belt attached to the wall and above the chair.

  “If we can’t get real five-point seat restraints for the pilots, at least install two seat belts, one to cover the legs and buckle in on the other side, the

  other across the chest area.” Alex turned to see if his suggestion was being

  noted. All the technicians were busy writing in their pads. “How many do

  we have built?”

  “About twenty. If it weren’t for that gift from Kalibri, it wouldn’t be

  possible,” Jorge said as he stepped inside the container.

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  Alex closed the distance and gave him a big hug, which Jorge returned.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while, how have you been?”

  “I’m okay. Listen, have you seen Timmy?”

  “No, why?”

  “He ran out of the TIC a couple of days ago, and no one has seen

  him since.”

  Alex stopped, his eyes dark and sleepless. He ran his hands through his

  hair as he considered his friends.

  “I messaged you several days ago. You told me you three were fine.”

  “Yeah, that was when I thought he disappeared to sleep or something.

  His messages are going unanswered.”

  “How many security people do we have available at the moment?”

  “None that are free, they are all on Zorn patrols or on guard rotations.”

  “Send a message to everyone and ask if anyone has seen Timmy. Get

  together with Zeek, and try putting a banner up requesting information

  every time someone gets into the system.”

  “Yeah, that could work.”

  “Why—” Alex tried to speak

  “Have you seen him? How is he?”

  “He’s in good spirits, considering. I think Tiffany has something to do

  with it.”

  “Who?”

  “A girl he met recently.”

  Alex nodded in understanding. “Have you seen your family?”

  “I checked out the property. Empty. But their vehicle is gone, so…”

  Alex watched as a couple of civilians were escorted to the other end of

  the hanger bay.

  Jorge turned to see what had caught his attention. “New arrivals. They

  came from those piling up on the perimeter.”

  “What’s the current estimate?”

  “There are about two thousand vehicles out there. We’ve got people out

  there sifting for those with usable skill sets.”

  “How’s the food situation?” Alex whispered.

  “Oh, we’ve already lost about ten percent.”

  “What!” Alex yelped. The technicians, closer than Alex would have

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  liked, looked at each other, and Alex gave them a stern look. They backed up a few paces.

  “It’s the safe zones. Food is scarce already, and providing for the safe

  zones is going to drain us.”

  “We need to ramp up food production and gathering.”

  “A couple of food industries went untouched, like wheat, produce and

  fishing. We can tap into those as soon as we get a few of these containers

  working. However, cows, goats, lambs, pigs and other such mammals were

  hunted by the Zorn as aggressively as humans, and few survived.”

  “Such pointless killing, they don’t even eat, they don’t have mouths.”

  Alex walking out of the hanger bay, his thoughts already on solving the

  food shortages.

  “Don’t you want to finish the inspections, sir?” one of the techni-

  cians shouted.

  “You guys did good work, just get them in the air.”

  * * *

  Fena woke to an alarm clock, but even after sleeping for eight hours, the

  exhaustion had barely dwindled. With great effort, she stepped out of her

  bunk and got dressed. A couple of messages appeared on her data pad as

  she brushed her teeth, and she read through them carefully.

  Reassignment—Please report to

  hangar bay two at 0800 for your

  new assignment.

  She looked at the time; she had nearly an hour to get there.

  The next message was from Stacy.

  Hey, heading out on the Destiny

  again. We are patrolling near home.

  I’m going to check on my parents, I’ll

  swing by your place, too. I’ll message

  as soon as I find something out.

  Fena took a deep breath and finished getting ready for the day.

  She headed out into the hallway, which was busy with people. She

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  walked over to the elevators, wondering whether to join the line of people moving floors. Two of the three elevators were still out of order, with no

  ETA on a fix.

  She passed the long lines, as she did every day, and walked down the

  numerous flights of stairs. Fresh paint covered the walls of the bottom five

  floors, though the paint did little to cover bullet holes and Zorn punctures.

  Finally, she made it to the bottom floor.

  Work crews and cleaning personnel were busy with various tasks, each

  flitting about the lower levels as though they had a better place to be than

  in her way. She watched as a team of workers assembled a new front desk.

  “You can almost forget that there are starving people out there.”

  Fena turned to the unrecognizable voice. “Jere!” Fena reached out and

  hugged Jeremiah, one of her fellow pilot program graduates.

  He looked tired, much like almost everyone else. “Hey, how are you?”

  Jeremiah asked in her ear.

  Letting go, she headed for the exit, Jeremiah walking by her side. “I am

  doing okay. You on cargo or transport?” she asked.

  “I’ve been on transport every day up ‘til now. You?”

  “I just got reassigned.”

  Jeremiah nodded as they walked past the sheets of plywood that now

  made up the front entrance to building A. Bits of glass still littered the area around the building as they made their way towards the hangers on foot.

  “This place is different than when I was last here,” Jeremiah said, notic-

  ing the lack of vehicles in the parking lot.

  “Yeah, it’s good. We’re moving people out of the underground shel-

  ter already.”

  “I think almost everyone here just wants to know if their loved ones

  survived the attack.”

  Fena remembered Stacy was checking on her family later today and

  remained quiet for a moment. “How bad is it out there?”

  “You’d expect there to be a lot of rioting and such, but I think the Zorn

  running around is scaring everyone enough for them to stay inside, hiding

  until they get desperate enough to leave.”

  “So, how does the whole ‘transporting people’ thing work?” Fena asked

  with genuine curiosity.

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  “Well, so far we’ve picked a city each day, ones with large stadiums. The Destiny or another ship hovers and begins air elimination of Zorn drones while soldiers set up a perimeter around the stadium. Then we find people

  in the area and take them to the stadium, with police or those with military

  experience in charge of the perimeter. Then we leave for the next city the

  following day. The cargo guys drop off food each day. Now we’re looking
>
  for those with special skills to take back to the Complex.”

  “Makes sense,” Fena said as the hanger came into sight.

  She walked past the area of the parking lot still riddled with empty

  shell casings, and the sidewalk stained with blood. Every day, she would

  walk past and wonder how long they would sit there before someone got to

  cleaning that mess up. Then she thought about the mess everywhere—not

  just on UEF property, but on the whole planet—and wondered when it

  would all get cleaned up. Thoughts of her parents surfaced again, and she

  desperately wished the cellphone system was working.

  “Do you think things will ever go back to normal?” Jeremiah asked as

  he kicked a few casings off to the side.

  Fena cracked a smile. “I doubt it. Anyone hear anything from the gov-

  ernment? You know, besides the This is an Emergency Broadcast message?

  They really need to update that loop.”

  “I’ve seen a bunch of navy ships parked off the coast near the ports,

  but the docks are packed with locals. I’ve also seen a few ground units here

  and there, tough to tell if they are locals or National Guard. I would have

  thought there’d be a bigger response to the attacks.”

  “It’s always been the secret policy to go deep and hide; that’s why rich

  people buy those crazy underground survival bunkers. There was a huge

  business for that kind of thing.”

  “Hmm…We’ve flown over quite a few military bases, and they all got

  hit pretty hard. Bodies everywhere, equipment just lying around, waiting

  to get used. Zorn don’t care about all of that. Highways are gridlocked.

  People just roaming the countryside. Every once in a while, you’ll see a

  large group of dead bodies.”

  The silence grew a little awkward. The rest of the short walk contin-

  ued on in silence until they entered the hanger building. All the pilots

  were huddled around the same area, discussing various topics. Coffee and

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  bananas were available at a nearby table, the bananas still bunched on the branch, like someone just cut it off the tree.

  Major Grissom walked into the area. Everyone found an empty fold-

  out chair and sat down facing him.

  “Your assignments will be posted on the board behind me. First issue,

  we’ve got flight data showing many of you are going far off course. I think I

  know why, so today I secured you permission to deviate you’re your courses