by Alex Bratton
She waited an hour, finishing her coffee and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Her heeled boots were comfortable for short periods of time, but after wearing them for twenty-four hours straight, Mina ached to be out of them. Sharp pain now shot through the balls of her feet, and she decided to dig her running shoes out of her bag.
A man slid out of his seat and slung a bag over his shoulder. Several other people rushed to the vacated chair, but Mina was closest. She forgot about her running shoes and sank down into the chair, breathing a sigh of relief and ignoring the dirty looks cast her way.
State officials updated the populace hourly, but the most they had to report was the lack of progress. News outlets, however, had more to report than they could handle. The airport crowds jammed around the TV screens, tuned to coverage of Mumbai, India, where a convoy of military vehicles was rolling through a residential neighborhood. A tower loomed in the distance. The convoy stopped, and soldiers jumped down out of their vehicles.
“The Government of India has evacuated all the surrounding neighborhoods,” a journalist reported. She stood in the street with the tower behind her. “This is as close as they will allow us. We have learned that the decision to strike preemptively at the tower has been met with extreme opposition from China and the United States. Since no one knows what’s inside, the possibility of some sort of fallout is on everyone’s minds.”
She put her finger to her ear.
“I’m sorry. This connection is very bad. We seem to be having some trouble communicating with the news room, so I didn’t hear the whole question… The answer is no, they are not using nuclear warheads, but other governments are worried about nuclear weapons inside the towers.”
She moved off-camera, bringing the tower into full view. Three fighter jets flew overhead in attack formation, making a pass around the tower. Sunlight bounced off their wings as they dipped in and around the monolith.
As the jets circled, the street grew quiet. Soldiers stood where they stopped.
The jets flew over once more and launched. The planes veered away while three trails of smoke headed for the tower. All three missiles hit their marks, exploding into fiery balls that engulfed the side of the stone.
Shouts and celebratory hoots erupted in the street. Soldiers slapped each other on the back.
Then, in groups of threes and fours, everyone turned back to the tower. The camera zoomed in. The street hushed.
Smoke blew off the stone, revealing no visible damage. The fires had petered out.
The journalist off-camera whispered, but her microphone picked up her question anyway. “Didn’t faze it? What’s that chatter?”
A translator spoke close to the mic.
“They’re saying it didn’t work. Well, we can see that.”
The fighter jets circled the tower again.
“We’re just waiting on the official report…”
No one spoke for some minutes. The smoke around the tower dissipated, blown away by the wind. The tower remained unchanged.
The journalist stepped back in front of the camera. “We have just witnessed an attack on the tower by the Indian Air Force. The report is just in. The missiles failed to damage it in any way.”
After the failed attempt to bring down the tower, looting continued throughout the day in London, New York, Moscow, Beijing, and three hundred other cities. In addition, rioters broke through police barricades to gawk at the towers, while demonstrators interfered with the riot police, gang rivalries turned into shooting wars, and suicide rates spiked. As civil unrest grew, military reserves descended on affected cities to help the overwhelmed local law enforcements. Russia and North Korea launched their own missiles at the towers with no results.
The towers loomed over their respective cities. Rumors of nuclear launches whispered through the crowds, fueled by the fear broadcast from every channel in the world. It seemed as if the city of London waited, holding its breath. Groups of impatient travelers crammed around airport TVs. Minutes ticked by as the lines grew longer.
A mass of thunderstorms was predicted for the next day, and travelers could expect more delays. All of Heathrow airport sighed out a collective groan.
When Mina could no longer hold her bladder, she gave up her chair in search of a restroom and supper. She had been unable to get in touch with Lincoln again before both her cell phone and laptop batteries died, and she had yet to find an opportunity to charge them. Entire families had camped out near charging stations, guarding them aggressively.
Mina felt like she had lived her entire life at check-in, waiting for permission to continue her journey. Airport security walked by with a dog, and the animal paused to sniff her carry-on. She smiled wearily at the official. The dogs had checked her bag five times already.
That night, she curled up with her arm resting on the lip of a giant concrete planter, coat pulled over her like a blanket. She wouldn’t sleep, but she wouldn’t spend the night wandering under the harsh airport lights, either.
Thoughts of the towers plagued her. What were they? Had Lincoln been correct? Were they aliens? Even the news wasn’t ruling it out. No one was ruling out anything. Would Boston be safe?
Maybe Lincoln wanted to drive with her out to their dad’s old place, which they had never been willing to sell after he died. She would ask Lincoln the next time they talked.
Lincoln sat at his desk in Boston, the glowing screen in front of him the only sign of life inside the dark open office. He absentmindedly picked up a pencil, tapping it on his desk while he read the web page in front of him. According to news reports, the situation in London was the same as in Boston, but he hadn’t heard from Mina in eighteen hours.
He hadn’t showered or changed in thirty. He glanced down at his button-down shirt and khakis and then rubbed a hand over his whiskers. Perhaps a shave would freshen him up. His auburn hair also needed a good combing. Lincoln ran a hand through it instead.
A patrol car eased down the street under the third-floor office window, its lights slowly flashing.
Lincoln pushed back from his desk and stood, stretching his six-foot-six frame. He looked around at the office’s computers, worktables, and servers. His team had left hours ago. He should have, too. Hopefully he wouldn’t be mistaken for a looter on his short walk home.
Someone knocked on the office door. Lincoln glanced at his cell phone. 8:00 p.m. A little late for a client but not entirely unusual. Still, it would be the first one all day. Maybe Mina was here and hadn’t been able to reach him by phone. Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked to the door and swung it wide.
Two men in dark suits stood outside, wearing grim expressions. Another stood to the left, watching down the hall. Feeling mildly threatened, Lincoln stepped between them and their view of the office.
“Lincoln Surrey?” one of them asked.
“Yes?”
“Josh Turren, Special Forces Liaison.” He opened a wallet with a badge that looked authentic. Considering the circumstances, Lincoln thought it probably was.
He frowned. “Can I help you?”
“I have a phone call for you, sir. May I step inside?”
Lincoln hesitated but then moved out of the doorway to let the first two men enter. The third stayed in the hall. Turren handed Lincoln a cell phone, which was already connected to someone.
He kept his eyes on the agents as he said, “Surrey.”
“Lincoln,” said the voice on the other end. “Glad I caught you. Paul Cummings.”
“Oh. Yes, hello, Paul.” Lincoln was relieved to hear a familiar voice. Why hadn’t Paul called the office like he normally did?
“Is your team around?” Cummings asked.
“No.”
“Too bad. I was hoping to catch all of you, but you can relay the message quickly, I trust. We’re implementing ARCHIE.”
Lincoln groped around for the nearest chair and rolled it toward him, but he didn’t sit yet. “You’re… as in… But just as a precaution, right?”
&nb
sp; “No, I’m afraid not. The towers aren’t man-made.”
Lincoln sat down. “So aliens, then.” The words sounded strange as they left his mouth. He experienced a rush of excitement—wait until Nelson finds out—followed swiftly by a surge of panic. There are towers in all major cities around the world.
Cummings continued, “How quickly can your team write a program to interact with the aliens and determine if they’re hostile?”
“You’re joking. How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do the life forms communicate?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“What do you know?”
“We’ll share everything we have. Are you in?”
Lincoln laughed. “Like I’d pass up an opportunity to communicate with the first intelligent beings from outer space.”
“Good. One other thing,” Cummings added. “There’s a facility we’re sending you to.”
“What kind of facility? Where? We have everything we need here at the lab.”
“Can’t tell you anything else over the phone. Has to do with ARCHIE. I’m sending a chopper to your building. Get your team ready. The gentlemen at your door will escort you to your destination.”
“There must be other people more qualified than us.”
“There are, and we’re sending some of them to you, but they can’t handle the coding like you.”
Lincoln did some quick thinking. “Paul,” he said.
“Yes?”
“My sister is in London, trying to get a flight back Stateside, but it’s chaos at the airports, and I haven’t been able to reach her all day. She may get through to the lab office, and I can’t miss her call.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but—”
“I don’t think you understand. Either she gets on a plane headed to the States, or I’m not leaving this lab.” He eyed the men standing in his office, but they wouldn’t dare force him into anything. Would they?
Cummings was quiet for so long Lincoln worried they’d been disconnected. Finally, he said, “I’ll see what I can do. Chopper’ll be there in an hour. See you soon.”
“Mina Surrey. Customer Mina Surrey. Please report to the customer relations desk.”
Mina pushed through the crowds, luggage in tow. She passed several television screens, now reporting lines of cars in the London streets, honking and swerving, headed out of the city in a mass exodus. The towers had not moved.
“Ms. Surrey?” asked a tense-looking man behind the counter.
“Yes?” she asked, slightly out of breath.
“We have a cancellation, and you have been bumped to the top of the list.”
His thick Scottish accent confused Mina for a moment, and she paused to process what he had just said. “I have?”
“Yes. By someone named Paul Cummings from Washington, DC.”
“Who is that?”
The man shrugged. A line was forming behind Mina. He handed her a ticket and a note. “He left this message for you. Your flight leaves this evening.”
His eyes were already fixed on the next customer, so Mina moved out of the way to examine the hand-scribbled note.
Lincoln Surrey flying to meet you in Atlanta.
Lincoln must have pulled some strings, but how? He didn’t know anybody that important.
Mina looked at the ticket. Her flight left at 8:00 p.m. She silently thanked Paul Cummings, whoever he was. Eight hours and she would be headed home. She smiled as she entered the airport security line.
Chapter Four
“LINCOLN.”
LINCOLN STIRRED IN THE chair where he had been dozing. He blinked watery eyes at one of his associates, computer engineer Lindsay Alvarez.
“Fresh coffee in the break room,” she said before sipping from her own Styrofoam cup. The plastic stirrer pressed into her tan cheek. She nodded toward an open doorway at the back of the conference room, causing a piece of straight dark hair to fall into her oval face. Usually, she wore contacts, but she’d taken them out at some point and put on dark-rimmed glasses.
Alvarez sat across from Lincoln at the large meeting table next to Carter. He pushed his own round glasses up on his nose and twiddled a cigarette between his fingers, most likely anticipating his next smoke break.
Chris Nelson, computer-engineer-hacker-genius, sat at the end of the table to Lincoln’s left, facing the door, completely awake and completely oblivious to the people around him as his fingers hummed over the keys of his laptop. The youngest of the group at twenty-eight, Nelson had a soft waistline and a bowl haircut. He wore a black Space Invaders t-shirt with a blue pixelated 8-bit alien on the front.
“Did you put on that shirt after I called you, Nelson?” Lincoln asked, smirking.
Nelson shot Lincoln an amused glance. “Heck yeah,” he said, his voice breaking slightly.
The four of them sat in the small conference room where they had been deposited after their helicopter ride to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. The white walls were bare. The rolling seats were stiff and unforgiving, the gray carpet barely worn. They had dropped their overnight bags haphazardly about the room, obstructing the narrow paths between the chairs and walls.
Lincoln had seen little else of the vast complex, but the sense of urgency they had experienced in the helicopter pervaded the air here as well. When they had arrived, he’d registered offices teeming with people rushing up and down, phones ringing, and televisions blaring. A large screen in the ground floor lobby of the building cycled through three-dimensional renderings of all the towers with lists of data displayed beside them. Lincoln would have liked to stop and look at them, but the group strode quickly past to the bank of elevators that took them to this third-floor room. Here, their suited escorts had left them.
Occasionally, the muffled sounds of people scrambling to make sense of chaos echoed down the hall. A uniform stood outside the door at all times, checking on the group from time to time. Helicopters whined in the distance.
Lincoln wondered what the military was planning to do about the towers, even hoping to see more once they arrived. So far, he had been disappointed. Even though his team was supposed to help, they had yet to be given any information on the situation or their role in it. Lincoln assumed they were waiting on Cummings, who had always been his point of contact for ARCHIE in the past.
Except for Lincoln’s short nap in his chair, no one slept. The team had begun working right away, taking advantage of the lull to pull up existing programs and refresh their memories on scenarios they had not seen in over a year.
Lincoln checked the time. 7:00 a.m. He’d only dozed for twenty minutes. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked at his screen. Nelson was digging into code, updating algorithms. Alvarez and Carter were discussing possible methods of contact.
“I don’t see how our programs are going to determine anything just by looking at the towers,” she said. “The aliens will need to do something.”
“Let’s hope they don’t do too much,” said Carter, “except open up and spit out E.T.”
“Then we’ll at least be useful.”
“What will also be useful,” Lincoln said, standing, “is if they hold up a big sign saying, We come in peace. Here’s the cure for cancer.”
“When was Cummings supposed to arrive?” Carter asked.
“He didn’t say.”
“Taking his time, isn’t he?”
Lincoln didn’t respond. He wanted to grumble a bit at being kept in the cramped room without any direction, but they were just getting started. No sense in complaining this early in the game.
“What I want to know,” Nelson said, never taking his eyes away from his screen, “is how this facility is in any way better than our lab.”
“I was wondering the same thing,” said Alvarez. “Why bring us here in a hurry only to dump us in an empty conference room?”
Lincoln shrugged. “Security?”
“But you would think they�
�d have a better place to put us,” Nelson said. His fingers whizzed over the keys. “I’ve heard about this facility. They have whole buildings for research and development, counterterrorism, you name it.”
“Maybe this is just a stopping place.”
“I hope so.”
They worked in ignorance for several more hours, gradually dropping questions, taking turns dozing at the table, making fresh coffee, and checking cell phones for messages from family or news about the towers. Carter took several smoke breaks, returning each time cloaked in the strong odor of tobacco.
The screen in front of Lincoln blurred. After three days without solid sleep, even the copious amounts of caffeine he was forcing into his body were doing nothing to remove the fog from his brain. He checked his phone occasionally, not expecting much with the spotty cell phone signal inside the room.
As his weariness grew, his patience wore thin. He scrolled through the numbers in his phone, looking for Paul Cummings. The number was still there. The man had always talked to Lincoln directly before and had never sent an escort. Lincoln toyed with calling Cummings to tell him they were waiting, but then, Cummings knew that. He had sent them here.
Footsteps echoed outside, voices at the door. Everyone looked up hopefully. The door opened, and their escort stepped aside for two other men in Army fatigues. The first man was at least six inches shorter than Lincoln but strongly built with dark hair buzzed short and a presence that took up the entire doorframe.
“Lieutenant John Halston,” he said, extending a hand to Carter, who was closest to the door. “This is Corporal Schmidt.”
Halston gestured to the much younger man behind him. Schmidt nodded. He was about twenty with a fresh boyish face and peach fuzz on his chin. The others all stood and shook hands, except Nelson, who glanced up from his computer in Halston’s direction.
“The colonel is on his way,” Halston said.
“Colonel who? Is Cummings here?” Lincoln asked, closing his laptop.
Halston glanced at Lincoln. “You’ll have to speak to Colonel Nash about it, but there’s no one named Cummings here.”