Invasion: Shadowmark Episode 1

by Alex Bratton

  Invasion

  Shadowmark Episode 1

  Alex Bratton

  Antimatter Books

  Invasion is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  2018 Antimatter Books

  Copyright © 2018 Alex Bratton. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  www.alexbrattonwrites.com

  Cover design by Dark Matter Book Covers

  www.darkmatterbookcovers.com

  License Note:

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from Amazon. Thank you for your support.

  Please leave a review after reading!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Author Note

  Also by Alex Bratton

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  CALLA CROUCHED ALONE IN DARKNESS, waiting for the best day of her life. Everything was ready. She was ready.

  The air on the spaceship, usually cold and still, carried an electric charge that echoed the current of anticipation running down to Calla’s bones. Tonight, small warships would break off from Condar and travel to Earth, just like her masters had planned. Tonight, countless covert operations on Earth would culminate into one ultimate mission. Her alien masters, the Condarri, would descend. Earth would change forever.

  All she needed was the signal from her commander, Dar Ceylin.

  A twinge of jealousy shot through the alien-human hybrid, and she indulged it a moment, tasting its bitterness on her tongue. Second in command wasn’t good enough. Could never be enough.

  Her heartbeat quickened, beating out a staccato inside her chest in quick, hard thumps that forced extra oxygen to her brain and limbs. She tensed, relishing the flow of adrenaline that accompanied it. Dar Ceylin had beaten her out of command, and fairly. She didn’t have to like it.

  But she needed to accept it.

  To give in to her jealousy would be to relinquish control to the DNA that Calla shared with the humans below, and she would not act like them even if she looked human. Right now, they lived in ignorance, but a ship the size of Earth’s Moon waited above the planet, ready to strike. Soon, hundreds of ships would enter Earth’s atmosphere. For her entire life, Calla had imagined this day of glory. Visions of blood and victory had haunted her dreams both waking and sleeping, until she barely slept, barely ate.

  Finally, one command separated the humans from destruction, and it wasn’t Calla’s to give.

  A shadow moved in front of her, blacker than the darkness around, an emptiness that wasn’t empty. The aether. It swirled through the corridor of the ship, causing the hair on Calla’s arms to stand on end. When the shadow passed, it left a deeper chill in its wake.

  A golden glimmer flashed from the walls then disappeared. Calla was used to the walls watching her. Would they know what she was thinking about her sworn commander?

  They always know. Calla vanquished her resentful thoughts as she reminded herself of her mission.

  She breathed deeply, forcing the tension to leave her body. Her heart had no room for petty human jealousy. Calla existed to serve the other side of herself, the side containing sacred Condarri DNA. Condar’s will determined hers, and today, her masters’ will was to occupy Earth.

  Today was a day of celebration.

  Whatever her feelings toward Dar Ceylin, the commander was loyal, unfailing, and unflinching. Calla decided that as long as he remained so, she would follow his orders.

  Chapter One

  Mina Surrey ran to forget. Work, studies, and failed relationships all faded into the background as she pounded out her frustrations onto the wet, unforgiving pavement. Her running shorts chafed, an uncomfortable reminder to keep her mind in the present. Her toes hurt, too, making Mina grateful she only had a half-mile to go before she completed another marathon. She was going to beat her personal best, and all she could think about were her swollen feet and her post-race meal.

  Mina had a love-hate relationship with racing. The pain mixed with euphoria, the challenge mental as well as physical. Today was no different. Ahead, the finish line was crowded with spectators and supporters lining the London street to urge the racers forward. Volunteers stood at the end with towels and drinks beneath a banner that read “Ending Cancer One Race at a Time.” Buoyed by the sight, Mina’s final steps became easier. A ray of sunshine burst through the rain-heavy clouds as she completed the marathon, mimicking the sense of elation that punched through her weariness.

  Exhausted, wet, and drunk with a sense of accomplishment, she accepted a towel and energy drink from a race volunteer and walked down the street a bit to cool down. After pulling out her phone, she logged her time and then texted her brother Lincoln. Made it!

  Lincoln called her right away from Boston. “Congrats, little sis. Any different than racing in America?”

  “The pain is the same.”

  “Not to steal your thunder, but we have big news here across the pond.” Lincoln loved to tease her with the promise of a story.

  Mina heard cheering in the background. It sounded like he was at a party. “Where are you?”

  “Work. Where else?” Lincoln asked as if work were always a party. “Tell you about it later?”

  “I’ll call back.”

  “Proud of you. Dad would be too.”

  As soon as they said goodbye, Mina unlaced her shoes and forced them off her feet. Then she undid the ponytail from her hair and let her brown waves flow down over her shoulders. Relief washed through her. All the trouble of racing was worth it for the moment she removed the shoes and let her hair down.

  Since she didn’t have anyone to support her at the race, Mina limped back to her room wearing the paper sandals she had rolled into the pouch at her hip. She had picked the hotel for its relatively cheap rate but also its proximity to the finish line.

  When she arrived, the clerk at the front desk stopped her. “We need a credit card for a security deposit. The new girl who worked here last night forgot to get it.”

  Mina fished her credit card from the pouch and handed it to the man. He swiped it, frowned, and swiped again.

  A look of sympathy crossed his features. “It was declined. Do you have another one?”

  Flushing with embarrassment, Mina fished out a different card, one for emergencies only. It went through, and Mina quickly signed for it before making a hasty retreat to her room.

  No matter how fast she ran, her problems always caught up to her when she stopped. The endless money troubles as she worked her way through grad school and last year’s failed engagement simultaneously spurred her forward and held her back.

  Despite the setbacks, she was determined to complete her education this year. The study abroad trip to England had been a patch of sunlight for her in an otherwise hum-drum life lately.

  The race had helped her relax, though. A bright spot dawned on the horizon, and her mind flooded with cheery thoughts. Once her dissertation was finished, Mina could settle down to something resemb
ling normal.

  She needed a dose of normal.

  Lincoln Surrey was ecstatic. Finally, after years of work, they had a breakthrough.

  “Look at that!” Robert Carter thumped Lincoln on the back as they watched their miniature robot move around the office.

  Yesterday, the awkward-looking two-legged bot couldn’t walk. Today, it had learned to do so after watching videos of babies take their first steps.

  It wasn’t a new invention. Other companies had done this years prior, but Lincoln’s upstart Interface Labs was miles ahead of the game, mainly because their program had become excited about learning.

  The robot learned to walk and then expressed joy in its accomplishment, communicating through the special program Carter had installed on his laptop. When the team had become excited, the robot had turned to look at them. They hadn’t taught it to feel happiness when it accomplished a new task. Somehow, it had learned the trait on its own.

  We did it, Lincoln thought as he went to shut down the bot.

  Robots weren’t supposed to experience human feelings. Technically, David, the name they had given the program, didn’t feel happiness, but he had learned to emulate it from those around him, and he had done it without prompting from the team. If given a realistic face and the mechanical ability to make expressions, he would be one-of-a-kind.

  The team was in the middle of celebrating. Chris Nelson and Lindsay Alvarez had left to pick up an early lunch for the office. Lincoln and Carter had stayed behind to store the bot.

  “Wait until this gets out,” Lincoln said. “We’ll have offers from all over, not just from NASA.”

  “If they can afford us,” Carter said good-naturedly.

  Lincoln grinned. His dream was to put one of his programs into space. “We might have to cut them a deal if we want them to work with us.”

  Carter fiddled with the cigarette pack in his shirt pocket. “Like let you onto the International Space Station?”

  “For starters, although I might be too tall for their spacesuits.” At six-feet-six inches tall, Lincoln towered over everyone else on his team.

  Carter patted his overlarge gut. “I wouldn’t fit inside a spacesuit for other reasons, but that’s okay. I’m content to spend all my money down here on Earth.”

  “What would you do with millions?” Lincoln asked as he picked up the bot. He already knew Carter’s answer, but the team members liked to imagine what they would do if all their hard work paid off.

  “I’d buy a mountain with a cabin and a creek and fish every day.”

  “There aren’t any mountains in Boston. How would you come to work?”

  “I’d work remotely. No need to see your freckled face every day.”

  Lincoln snorted. “I want a better lab, more room for equipment.” He gestured to the smallish second-story warehouse office. “Our own building.”

  “What else?”

  Lincoln placed the bot in its case. “Truthfully? I don’t know. Now that it might actually happen, I have to think about it. I’d help out Mina. She struggles financially. Speaking of her, I need to make a phone call. She completed another race today.”

  “What was it this time?” Carter asked. “Another charity for women’s lib?”

  Lincoln smiled. “No, she raced for cancer.”

  “Oh,” Carter said, suddenly looking awkward.

  Lincoln shrugged. Their father had died years earlier of cancer, and if Mina cared about something more than equal rights, it was curing cancer.

  At that moment, the others arrived with the food, and the smells of steak and shrimp distracted Lincoln from calling Mina back. She might have gone to bed early, anyway. He’d have to talk to her later.

  Lincoln’s thoughts turned back to his work and his high hopes for the future. After today’s achievement, life couldn’t get much better.

  Chapter Two

  THE CELL PHONE BUZZED OUT a rhythm at least three times before Mina realized it was ringing. She turned over in bed with a groan, her hand reaching for the phone as it buzzed again.

  Mina didn’t bother to look at the screen before she answered. Only one person ever called her this late—or early, depending on how she looked at it.

  “Are you watching this?” Lincoln asked.

  She hummed sleepily, her brain not yet fully awake.

  “Mina? Do you think this is real? Do you think they’re real? I mean, of course they are, right?”

  “I’m not even sure this conversation is real, Lincoln. What time is it?”

  “Ten p.m.”

  “I meant what time is it in London?”

  “I guess three? Were you sleeping?”

  “I generally am at three in the morning.” Mina looked at her phone to confirm the time. The screen’s bright light blinded her, making her eyes water.

  “So, are you watching this?” he repeated.

  “Watching what?” Mina didn’t try too hard to keep the irritation out of her voice.

  “The TV. Turn it on.”

  “What channel?”

  “I don’t think it matters. Any news channel.”

  That got her attention. Mina swung her legs out of bed, leaving the warmth of her blankets behind for the cool air of the hotel room. She shivered and groped around for the remote without turning on the lights.

  The first station she found showed helicopters circling a large… something… sitting in the Thames. Giant spotlights were trained on it, casting eerie white light into the mist. In the background, London’s skyline twinkled. The caption scrolling along the TV screen was reporting that a tower-like phenomenon had appeared in the river just south of the Westminster Bridge.

  “What do they mean appeared?” Mina asked.

  “We don’t know how they got there.”

  “They?”

  “They’re all over every major city in the world. At least fifteen in the US.”

  Mina and Lincoln stayed on the phone without talking, each watching their respective stations while more news came in and checking social media. Eventually, the news outlets had better video. The towers were bastions of rock, tall as any skyscraper, but they looked more like giant lumps of coal fallen from a giant’s hand than manmade buildings. Whether they had been thrust up from the Earth’s crust or cast down from above, no one knew, and they were spreading like a rampant disease that didn’t acknowledge international boundaries or bodies of water.

  Reports came trickling then flooding in about the same occurrences in Australia, China, and Russia. Still, no one could explain how the rocks got there. People had gone to bed just like they always did, worried about jobs, school, and family, and woke to sentinels of stone planted outside their cities.

  The sun rose while Mina channel-surfed. She wanted official information, but no one was offering any, only vague speculation and urges not to panic. Mina imagined she heard shouting in the streets below and the wail of sirens, but when she peered out her third-floor window, the streets were calm. When Mina wasn’t anxiously looking out the window, she was tethered to the wall by her phone charger.

  “Hey, can you find the local London station?” Lincoln asked. “CNN has picked them up.”

  He hadn’t spoken in over an hour, but for some reason, neither of them had been willing to drop the connection.

  Mina flipped through the channels and paused at the one Lincoln was referring to.

  “…but are these human terrorists or extraterrestrials?” a journalist asked, her eyebrows knitted together as she leaned forward at the table.

  “Sorry? I don’t quite follow,” said the man across from her. He glanced at the camera. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and into his bushy eyebrow.

  Mina recognized the journalist. She was from a local British program, one known for dubious speculation on the best of days. Why had CNN picked it up?

  The man sat across the table from the newscaster in jeans and a scruffy beard. The caption below him read George Bentlane, expert on alien intelligence. Mina snort
ed with amusement.

  Bentlane picked a piece of lint from his shirt and brushed it onto the table.

  “Have you been to see the structure, Mr. Bentlane?” the journalist asked.

  “Yes. I went up this morning before the police brought out the dogs.”

  “Would you describe it to our viewers? What was it like up close?”

  “It really is like a massive stone wall,” said Bentlane. “Watching on the telly, I thought it looked like a piece of shale sticking up out of the Thames, like a long shard of rock fell out of the sky and landed nose down in the river. Up close, it still looks like that, only you can see it shines, really gleams, like polished stone. It is black like onyx, and there’s just something about the unsettling feeling you get from being around the rock. It’s not quite right. Stone is stone, but this is something more.”

  “And that’s why you feel it’s not of human origin?”

  “No, can’t be. Tell me, what terrorist group—no, no—what entity of any sort in the world has the ability to plant these structures overnight without anyone seeing them do it or leaving any evidence behind? I’m surprised anyone’s even considering terrorists.”

  “I’m sure someone somewhere will have filmed it. This is a digital world after all. We just have to find the people who are holding out on us. Frankly, I’m surprised no one has posted video online yet.”

  Bentlane shook his head. “That’s because no one has any, and if extremists placed these towers, they did not discriminate. All countries, regions, and religions are affected.”

  The camera cut away from Bentlane to display more helicopter footage of the phenomenon in London, this time showing it in the full light of day. Mina thought the jagged piece of rock really did look like it had sloughed off a larger one. The towering stone glimmered dully in the morning light. The camera panned around the lip of the black wall, showing glimpses of other news choppers circling the structure.