RISE

by R. D. Brady

  Jasper grinned, but it was missing some of his usual humor. “No. This is where we keep people who we don’t want to see the regular base.”

  “But current events have changed all of that. We need everyone to be together. Tilda is evacuating the base,” Mike said.

  “Where to?” Norah said.

  “Still working on that,” Mike said. “Penny and her mother have already been taken off the island. Your gang’s destination requires a little more planning, however. As soon as I have a firm answer, I’ll let you know. But for right now, we need to get everybody over to your new digs.”

  Jasper held his arms wide. “So, who needs help packing a bag?”

  Ten minutes later, they were piled up into the back of a truck. Maeve sat with Snap on her lap, Alvie next to her. Crackle and Pop were in Chris and Greg’s laps respectively. Norah had Iggy, and Sandra had Luke. As Maeve looked around, she realized that every adult had at least one individual they would need to look out for. They had a common bond: protecting the ones they loved.

  The truck rattled as it made its way down the dirt road. They drove through the woods for about fifteen minutes before they reached a paved road. Maeve let out a sigh of relief at the transition to a smoother ride.

  Greg twisted, stretching out his back. “That’s better.”

  The hair on Maeve’s whole body stood up for second. It felt as if energy had just passed over her.

  “Holy cow,” Norah exclaimed, looking toward the front of the truck.

  Maeve craned her neck, trying to see what Norah was looking at. And then she stared in shock. A half mile down the road stood a small city. But it was a city unlike any she had ever seen. The buildings seemed to shimmer in the light. And they were made of the material that she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t concrete. It wasn’t wood. The closest she could guess was steel, but it seemed shinier than that. There was almost like an iridescent glow underneath the metal.

  The buildings that they could see rose up only about four stories. But there was one that was six stories high. And a strange craft sat at the top of that building.

  The window separating the cab of the truck from the back slid open. Jasper’s face appeared. “Now you are really seeing R.I.S.E.”

  Chapter Fifty

  The city was small. It contained only about ten blocks. Each building gave off a pearly iridescent glow. There were dozens upon dozens of soldiers, scientists, and personnel on the streets. Most drove solar-powered jeeps, but there were a few solar-powered Hummers as well.

  Mike pulled up in front of a three-story building, and they all clambered out of the back. Greg stared up at the building, trying to figure out what kind of material it was.

  Mike joined him, staring up. “It’s a polymer-based material. It’s incredibly strong but also incredibly flexible. Once set, it can withstand a great deal. But it’s also incredibly light. You could pick up that entire wall and put it in place if you needed to.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  Mike grinned. “Where do you think?”

  Greg shook his head. “Why exactly were we stuck over in Camp Nowheresville when this was right here?”

  “No one is brought to the main campus unless absolutely necessary.”

  Greg scoffed. “And we’re not absolutely necessary?”

  Mike just shrugged.

  Jasper clapped his hands together, drawing everyone’s attention to the front of the building. “Okay, folks. You are all going to be assigned apartments in this building behind me. It will just be for the night. First thing in the morning, we will all be getting on transports. I will have more information on that probably in the morning. Right now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll give you your room assignments, and you can all get settled.”

  They all headed toward the building. But Mike tapped Greg’s shoulder, shaking his head. “Actually, Tilda needs you and Maeve for a little bit. She needs your help with something.”

  “What?” Greg asked.

  “An autopsy.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The autopsy lab was located in the six-story building, and it was state of the art. But Maeve expected no less after seeing the actual R.I.S.E. buildings. State of the art was actually an understatement. It was more like state of the universe.

  The same iridescent walls lined all of the spaces. The floors were also made from the same material. It muffled footsteps, which gave it an unreal quality as she walked down the hall toward the lab where they would be conducting the autopsy.

  Everything about the building felt light and yet incredibly strong. There were no door handles or even keypads. Every panel could be used as an information center, and doors just opened as they approached them.

  And while she was still reeling from the attack and from the revelations of the actual R.I.S.E. base, she couldn’t deny that there was a kernel of excitement growing inside of her at the idea of examining a Draco specimen.

  The soldiers had delivered the body to the autopsy suite. The lab itself was small, baring a striking resemblance to an operating room. One soldier stood outside the door while the other two who had been guarding the body moved over to the door.

  Maeve and Greg wasted no time gowning up and getting to work. The body now lay on the steel table. She and Greg cut away the clothes and bagged them, handing them off to a waiting soldier for analysis.

  Now they had just the Draco lying in front of them. At first glance, the Draco appeared completely human. His skin tone marked him as Caucasian, his hair color was brown, his lips a pale pink.

  “Well, he’s got all the correct appendages.” Greg lifted up the towel covering his private parts. “And apparently they were graced with a little extra in certain areas.”

  Maeve moved slowly from the man’s head down to his feet, just doing a visual examination. She stopped at his hands, examining his fingers more closely. “Greg, come look at this.”

  Greg hurried around to her side, taking the hand from her. There was skin stretched between the fingers. “Webbing.”

  Maeve nodded. Webbing wasn’t unheard of amongst humans, although it was rare. She moved quickly down to his feet. “Same thing.”

  “Do you think this is standard, or he’s just not quite fully evolved?”

  “There’s no way to know without a second specimen.”

  Greg stood back, his gaze roaming over the body. “This is really unfair. I mean, you see Agaren, you know he’s an alien. You see Iggy, and you think, hey, there’s another one. This guy looks like he could shop at Trader Joe’s and no one would even blink.”

  “Speaking of which.” Maeve moved to the man’s eyes as Greg started jotting down measurements. She was jumping all over the place, but she wasn’t sure how much time they had to do the autopsy, and she wanted to gather as much information as possible.

  She pulled back an eyelid, the skin offering more resistance than she expected. But a very normal human-looking eye stared back at her. White sclera, dark brown iris, black pupil. She flashed the light into the eye and then paused, squinting. There was an outline slightly darker than the pupil running from the top to the bottom of the eye.

  Working on a hunch, she moved to the side of the eye, pulling back the skin there. She was rewarded with another layer of skin. “Greg.”

  Greg carried the chalkboard over, setting it on the man’s stomach as he peered down where Maeve pointed. “Holy crap. He’s got a second set of eyelids.”

  “And check this out.” She flashed the light on his pupil. “Do you see this darker outline? The pupils do change shape.”

  “Now that would make someone stand out at Trader Joe’s.” Greg grinned at her. “Let’s see what else we can find.”

  And despite everything that was swirling around them, she understood and felt the same sense of curiosity. Curiosity was what had led them both into science. And neither of them had been able to feed that curiosity much in the last few months. She found herself excited for the first time in a long time. She was
back in a lab. She grinned. “Can’t wait.”

  They studied the body for over two hours. It had been an illuminating investigation. The Draco’s body was amazing. From its skin to its internal organs, everything was designed for battle, for efficiency.

  From a purely biological standpoint, they were an absolute marvel. As an enemy, they were absolutely terrifying. The first most obvious problem was their skin. It wasn’t human skin, despite what it looked like. It was tougher, much more resistant. In fact, Maeve had a sneaking suspicion that because of the density with which the molecules were packed, it would repel sharp instruments and potentially even bullets.

  Which made them awfully hard to kill.

  The second problem was their internal organs. First off, their hearts were located on the opposite side of the chest as a human’s. And they were much smaller. Neither she nor Greg thought that was an aberration with this particular Draco. She was pretty sure that was by design. Their bodies just pumped blood much more efficiently. Their blood itself was much less dense than human blood. In fact, their bodies in general were less dense except for the skin. It made everything more efficient, which explained how they could be so fast and so muscular at the same time.

  They also had a second set of teeth. There were actually humans that had a second set of teeth, but the second row within the Draco was much sharper, and although they couldn’t confirm it, Greg had a feeling they could actually replace the first row in a fight.

  “These things are beasts.” Greg dropped the clipboard onto the desk behind him with a clatter. “Okay, so we’ve got creatures that have nearly impenetrable skin, highly efficient circulatory systems, strong musculature, and a basic badassness to them. We are so screwed.”

  Maeve ignored the last part of his comment. “It’s true they do have some amazing natural defenses. But their eyes are weak points, and so are their mouths.” The interior of their mouths was made of a much less dense material. As a result, it could be harmed with a bullet and maybe even with a knife.

  “Great, we’ll just hope that they all run toward us while screaming so that we can actually hit them in their mouths. I’ve been shooting for a couple of months now at stationary targets while giving myself plenty of time to line up my shot, so sure, no problem.”

  Maeve rolled her eyes. “I know it’s not the best news, but at least it’s something.”

  “Yeah, very little something,” Greg murmured.

  Maeve gave him a baleful look. He put up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. Just feeling a little bit overwhelmed.”

  Maeve walked over and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Hey, we escaped a military installation that was completely teeming with hundreds of aliens that wanted to kill us. Those were impossible odds too, and yet here we are.”

  “True. But I was kind of hoping that impossible odds were a one-time thing and that now we would move on to more reasonable odds, or better yet, ones that favored us for a change.”

  “Well, maybe the next life-threatening situation will be more in our favor.”

  Greg sighed. “Dare to dream.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Maeve and Greg wrote up the results of their initial evaluation. They handed off blood and tissue samples, along with a list of analyses that needed to be done, to Mike, who replaced the soldiers who’d originally been stationed inside the lab. Mike promised to have the results back to them ASAP.

  Then there was nothing for Maeve and Greg to do but get settled back in the apartments before they left first thing in the morning. Mike offered to drive them back to their building, but both Maeve and Greg wanted to walk.

  The evacuation seemed to be in full swing. The streets were packed with trucks, jeeps, and even a few motorcycles. They’d also had to step out of the way of more than one individual carrying a large box or pushing an overloaded dolly. Everyone was definitely getting ready to leave.

  Maeve said goodbye to Greg in the hallway outside her apartment and let herself in.

  She sighed at the quiet in the apartment. For the first time in a long time, it was just her, Chris, and the kids. She welcomed it, along with the accommodations in the apartment. They were much nicer than the ones at the smaller camp. It felt like they were living in high-end Silicon Valley campus housing rather than the front lines in a fight against an alien presence on Earth and above.

  Tilda had given them an apartment on the first floor of a three-story building. Their apartment was the largest, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full kitchen, dining room, living room, and even a small fenced-in area out back.

  Greg had a smaller apartment at the end of the hall. Norah and Sandra each had apartments on the second floor. And Adam and Tilda lived on the third floor.

  Guards were stationed out front, and Maeve liked to think that they were there to keep them safe and not to keep them in. But it felt like everything was shifting under her feet and it was hard to know exactly what was going on and exactly who was on their side.

  Maeve’s entire goal was simply to keep her family safe. And now her family extended to Greg, Norah, Iggy, Luke, and Sandra. But being in the middle of an intergalactic war—that was never part of her plan.

  But once again, no one seemed to care what Maeve wanted. Oh, Mom, I wish you realized what a can of worms you opened up. She didn’t regret Alvie. She didn’t really blame her mother either. The military was going to go ahead with their project with or without her mother’s cooperation. And after seeing Area 51, she knew that Alvie had been in a much better situation with them than he ever would’ve been with anyone else.

  She just hated the feeling that they were pawns in the middle of a giant chess game that was well beyond their skill level.

  Grace stepped out of one of the bedrooms and jogged over to her, rubbing up against her. Maeve leaned down and rubbed her coat, receiving a few licks in return. “Good to see you too, girl.”

  Maeve straightened and headed to the room Grace had just exited. Chris sat on the bed reading a book to the triplets, all of them hanging on him. Alvie was cuddled into his side. Maeve smiled at the normalcy of the moment.

  She stepped into the room. Five sets of eyes darted toward her. The triplets sprang off the bed, sprinting for her and wrapping their arms around her legs and nearly tipping her over. She laughed as she patted their backs. “I missed you too, guys.”

  Maeve climbed back onto the bed with all of them as Chris finished the story and then tucked them all in. They all wanted to sleep in the queen bed in there, and Maeve liked the idea of them being together. Personally, she thought she might try to squeeze in there with them later when she went to sleep herself. She would just feel better if they were all together.

  She pulled the navy-blue comforter up to Alvie’s chin. The triplets were already closing their eyes. The day had been a lot for them. They had sensed the stress and angst. And Iggy’s response to the intruder had scared them all.

  But thank God for Iggy. If he hadn’t recognized that there was an intruder, who knew what damage the man could’ve done? Tilda thought he was just a scout trying to get the lay of the land, and Maeve knew that was probably correct. But if he’d come across one of the triplets or Alvie, maybe he would’ve decided that information wasn’t all he was going to bring back.

  Maeve still struggled with the idea that Ethan had betrayed them. Tara looked beyond devastated. Maeve hadn’t had a chance to speak with her, but she’d seen her again at the main camp. Tara had walked by with Tilda, her eyes rimmed red. Maeve hadn’t had the courage to ask what had happened to Ethan.

  Iggy?

  Maeve smoothed the blankets along Alvie’s chest. “He’s all right. He’s right upstairs with Norah.”

  Brave.

  “Yes, he is. We are very lucky to have him.”

  Friend.

  Maeve started at the word. It was true. Iggy was Alvie’s friend. He was his first friend he’d made without Maeve’s help. All the other people who Alvie had ever met had always been very care
fully introduced to him through Maeve.

  She smiled and kissed his forehead. “Yes, he is your friend.”

  Alvie smiled, snuggling next to Crackle and closing his eyes. Maeve stayed with them until she was sure they were asleep, and then she went in search of Chris. She stopped at the front door and made sure all of the locks were on. Realistically, she knew if someone tried to get in, it wasn’t going to be much of a deterrent. But she felt better knowing that at least it would be a small hindrance.

  The door to the patio was open. She wended her way around the large dining table and stepped outside. Chris sat in one of the Adirondack chairs, a beer open next to him. He looked over at her and then pointed at the table. “Brought you one too.”

  Maeve pulled the beer from the container filled with ice. She unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. The bubbles tickled her throat, and she sighed in response. “I needed that.”

  She took a seat in the Adirondack chair next to Chris. He held out his hand, and she put hers in it. He squeezed gently. “Everyone asleep?”

  “Somehow, miraculously yes. Personally I don’t think I’m going to be getting much sleep tonight.”

  “Me either. It’s been a hell of a day.”

  Maeve looked at him and giggled. A stronger laugh worked its way up her throat. She placed the beer bottle on the ground before she dropped it as laughter spilled out of her.

  Chris stared at her like she’d lost her mind and then slowly he smiled, a laugh erupting from him. The two of them sat together, laughing hysterically until Maeve doubled over, holding her stomach. “No more. No more.”

  Chris reached over and rubbed her back, chuckles still running through him.

  Maeve sat up, taking in some deep breaths and wiping the tears from her eyes. “We find out there’s an alien race that has been living on the planet Earth for centuries and is now out to get us, and your summation is it’s been a hell of a day.”