by SD Tanner
If that had been his only problem, he might have settled back and waited to die, but there was something else invading his thoughts. Without wanting to, he’d found himself calling to mind images of his training, combat experiences and NORAD. At first, he’d assumed he’d lost his mind, until he gradually realized he was being scanned. It was as if something was flipping through his memories in the same way he would study a photo album. When it found a picture it was interested in, it would probe deeper looking for more memories. In effect, he was being held prisoner and interrogated. Once the initial shock had worn away, he’d found himself utterly outraged at being used to help the enemy. He was a Marine, trained to die in the glory of battle, and no one was going to screw with his head without his permission.
His first attempt to resist the creature had been to summon other images from his memory. Recalling his favorite movies, he’d reconstructed their plots, but the creature eventually tired of this, imposing its will on him again. Detailed images and information about NORAD began playing through his mind, but the thoughts weren’t being triggered by him. Irritated, he tried another tactic by singing a marching tune, sounding off as loudly as he could.
“Will you shut up?”
The woman’s abrupt and feminine voice caught him by surprise. “Excuse me?”
“You sound like a toneless foghorn.”
Unsure whether the voice was really coming from another person, he asked, “Who are you?”
The image of an attractive blonde woman in her forties drifted through his mind. “I’m Shirley.”
“Where are you?”
“The same place you are.”
“And where is that exactly?”
“Inside of Steve.”
“Steve?”
“Yeah, that’s who he was before he got super ugly.”
“Can you talk to him?”
“I don’t need to. We’re sort of merged now.”
Her answer confused him. All the creature had done was invade his mind, but he couldn’t see into its thoughts in return. “I don’t understand. How do you know what this thing is thinking?”
“I don’t. I just know things I didn’t know before.”
“Why can’t I do that?”
“You’re probably trying to stop him.”
“And you’re not?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he’s the enemy and you shouldn’t tell him what you know.”
“But I don’t know anything useful to anyone.”
Bemused by her directness, he replied, “How do you know what he’d find useful?”
“Well, if he’s looking for the best shops in New York or a decent hairdresser then I’m his girl.”
With her words came images of expensive stores and a pretty woman admiring herself in the mirror. Despite himself, he chuckled. “I’m a Marine and what I know is useful to him.” Realizing Shirley had access to more information than he did, he asked, “What else can you see inside of his mind? I mean, do you know what he’s doing here?”
“Well, he doesn’t know much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Steve isn’t alive anymore. Other than a few memories that man is gone.” In a gossipy tone, she added, “He killed his wife, you know. She came home and he shot her in the head. It was really quite uncalled for.”
He was starting to wonder whether Shirley had gone mad or if she’d always been so easily distracted. “What about the aliens?”
“What aliens?”
“The critters. The things that took over the planet.”
“Oh, you mean the bugs. They’re not aliens. They’re…just things Steve uses to get stuff done.”
“You mean like drones.”
“I suppose.”
“Why is Steve here at all?”
“It’s his job to collect the newborns. He’s sort of a stork, I suppose, only he collects rather than deposits.”
“Newborns?”
“Yes, he has to send them home.”
The more she talked, the less he trusted what she had to say. She wasn’t making any sense, but having nothing else to do and enjoying the distraction, he asked, “Who are the newborns?”
“Some of us are.” With her reply came the image of a blonde woman flicking her hair as if she were frustrated by his stupidity. “The planet was seeded a long time ago. We’re a nursery. Steve, along with others, were planted to collect the newborns. It’s sort of lovely when you think about it.” Almost sounding charmed, she added, “We’re a baby farm.”
Thinking that Shirley had definitely lost her mind, he replied dourly, “They killed half of the population and imprisoned the rest.”
“Oh, that wasn’t their fault. They were just eliminating a mistake.”
“What does that mean?”
“Something went wrong. There’s too many of us and not all of us can be used as newborns.”
“Used?”
Shirley was growing increasingly impatient with his questions. “Yes, they can only use the ones with…less of us in them. Those ones will be sent home and the rest of us will be eliminated to stop the spread of…the faulty ones.”
“The human race are just faulty newborns?” He asked in disbelief.
“Exactly!” She exclaimed, clearly relieved he’d finally understood.
“That’s not acceptable.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have the right to exist. Some dumbass alien doesn’t get to decide whether we should be here or not.”
“But they put us here, so doesn’t that make them God.”
An image of the pretty Shirley drifted across his mind again and he studied her curiously. With her striking features, age had been kind to her, and had they been anywhere other than stuck on the side of Steve he might have hit on her. As it was, they were both trapped inside of a monster that was only the servant of a smarter species. Shirley might have been content to write off the entire human race on their say so, but he wasn’t.
“No, Shirley, that doesn’t make them God,” he said softly. “We might be a mistake in their eyes, but that could be said of many a man I’ve met. Fact is, we’re here now and we don’t have to hand over the farm just because they fucked up.”
Sounding slightly miffed, she asked, “What are you going to do about it? You’re stuck inside of Steve.”
She had a point. He was trapped behind enemy lines, buried inside of the gut of a monster, and that didn’t put him a strong position. “At the very least I don’t have to tell him anything useful.” This train of thought led him to another and he added, “Well, nothing useful for him anyway.”
In a sulky tone, she asked, “What do you mean?”
He might only be a floating face on the body of Steve, but he could still smile. As a grin spread across his flattened features, he replied, “We can tell Steve anything we want. If he’s just a machine then he’s no smarter than the critters.”
“What do you want to tell him?”
Shirley could obviously read what Steve was thinking as easily as he could talk to her. She was like a modern day Marta Hari, spying on their enemy without knowing it. If she could help him understand what Steve was doing, he could feed him inaccurate information, hopefully giving Ark an edge he could use.
“What’s Steve doing now?”
“Lots of things, but mostly his…drones are finding the newborns and preparing them for transport.” She paused and then added brightly, “Plus he’s eliminating the missile bunker.”
“You mean NORAD?”
“I suppose. It was something he learned from you.”
“Son of a bitch!”
CHAPTER SIX: Sleeping beauty (Dayton)
“It looks like something from Area 51.”
One-of-One gave the nurse a look of disbelief. “Maggie, how do you know what was in Area 51?”
Sounding uncertain, Maggie replied, “I don’t.” She pointed at the body lying on the table. “But I saw a movie about Ros
well and the aliens were porcelain white, skinny limbed, had big joints, with a large head just like this one does.”
Maggie might have been called a nurse, but she was probably as well qualified as him, only she was making herself look stupid. One-of-One didn’t tolerate anyone, much less fools and answering for her, he said sternly, “Nobody knows what was in Area 51. You’re comparing it to something you might have seen in a movie. Surely you know the difference between fact and fiction because if you don’t, you’re fired.”
With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Maggie replied, “If you don’t lighten up you’ll become known as Two-of-One.”
He guessed she might have a point, but since the attack on CaliTech, he’d lost his sense of humor. There was nothing they could do for the injured other than to medicate their pain. Watching so many of them die of injuries they couldn’t heal had broken something inside of him. His motivation to become a doctor and an oncologist was to save lives. The elongated body lying on the table had once been human, and to him it was just another person he couldn’t save. To stand by and watch people die was eating away at him, making him irritable and difficult to be around.
A Navigator had secured the creature to the table and now stood in the doorway watching them, ready to step in should it cause any trouble. Not that it appeared capable of doing anything. Its porcelain white skin appeared to be fragile and its skull was a rounded dome that looked large against the width of its long, thin body. Lying palm down on the bed, its fingers were long with flattened ends. Whenever it was touched, its eyes would blink open and then close equally as abruptly.
As she ran a gloved hand along its flat chest, One-of-One observed, “It responds to physical stimuli.”
With her humorless disposition, he suspected a single blink was as much effect as One-of-One could have on anyone. “It could be a reflex.”
They’d already scanned the creature, only to learn it appeared to have organs, but they didn’t look human. Unlike the critters, the white skin wasn’t an exoskeleton, and this one definitely had a brain, even if it appeared to be inactive. They hadn’t found anything that resembled a heart or a cardiovascular system, making him wonder what powered it when it was alert, if it ever was.
Maggie prodded the creature’s abdomen, making its eyes blink open again. “Maybe it’s like ET. We should give it a phone.”
Glancing at her briefly, he asked dourly, “Did you learn everything you know from the movies?”
“Well, what else are you gonna do with it?”
Picking up a scalpel, One-of-One prodded at the creature’s chest. “We’re going to do what all good scientists do and cut it open.”
The creature’s eyes blinked open and stayed that way while One-of-One continued to jab at its torso, looking for the best place to start her incision. With white eyeballs and no irises, it wasn’t possible to know if the creature was looking at her or even registering what was about to happen. The blinking could be a reflex or a sign of awareness, but he wasn’t sure which it was.
“Umm, do you think you should do an autopsy on something we’re not sure is dead?”
One-of-One pulled her mask over her chin and gave him a blank look. “We won’t learn much more if we don’t.”
“Yeah, but we know it was a person. What happens if they’re still inside of there? You’re about to do a living autopsy.”
Raising her eyebrows, Maggie pulled down her mask. “Doctor Feelgood has a point. I’m not sure we can do that.”
Ignoring her cheeky name for him, he spoke into his earpiece. “Ark, are you there?”
“Yeah, we’re on our way back from the nest. Why?”
“We have the creatures Stax brought in. They don’t have organs we recognize, but we’re not sure it’s dead.”
“So?”
“I don’t think we should carve it up unless we’re absolutely sure it’s dead. What if the person it was is still inside of it?”
“Can it talk?”
“Not that we’ve noticed.”
“Does it breathe?”
“Not that we can tell.”
“Does it have a heartbeat?”
“Haven’t found a heart to know.”
“Does it have blood?”
“It’s hard to tell until we start cutting into it, which brings me back to my point. Can we carve up something that might still be alive in some way?”
One-of-One sighed irritably. “Can I at least cut off a chunk for analysis?”
Sounding relaxed, Ark asked, “How big of a chunk do you need?”
“Well, I’d really like to take a look at the organs inside of it.”
He shook his head. “Now you’re back to autopsying it.”
“Do you really think we can afford the luxury of such high moral standards?” One-of-One asked.
“Actually, I think it’s really important that we maintain some morals, otherwise what’s the point?”
“You’re not a very good scientist,” she replied flatly.
“And you’re a lousy doctor.”
While they were arguing Ark had been quiet, but now he said, “You can’t carve it up. Look at Cassie. She’s still in there, so we don’t know what’s inside of this thing either. Keep it secured and put a camera on it just in case it does something interesting.”
Sounding dissatisfied, One-of-One asked, “Can I at least take a chunk of it for analysis?”
“You can take a small skin sample,” he replied firmly.
Speaking before they had time to argue any further, Ark said, “One-of-One, Dayton has a bigger conscience than you do, so he gets to set the rules. You can have whatever he agrees to.” With their argument settled, he asked, “Dayton, what do you think it is?”
He looked across at One-of-One who was now running her scalpel along the creature’s chest, clearly trying to decide where she would scrape a sample. “What’s your take on this?”
Continuing to caress the body with her blade, she replied distractedly, “In what sense?”
“Is it alive?”
“Yes, sensory-based stimulation doesn’t made dead things blink.”
“Is it conscious?”
“No, it doesn’t appear to have any other awareness.”
“Is it brain dead?”
“No, and I think you already worked out what it is.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you said it was empty.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think it’s a vessel for something we haven’t seen yet.”
CHAPTER SEVEN: Face of the enemy (Leon)
“What the hell is going on?”
Ark was sitting on top of the truck while it was making its way along the I-40. Where it could easily have come apart, their mission to the nest had gone well. Lexie and Tank had retrieved the baby bot and they were heading back to CaliTech with high hopes of what it might reveal. Listening to the discussion between Ark and Dayton, they now knew people were being transformed into something other than the critters and it wasn’t a good development.
“I dunno,” Ark replied. “You know as much as I do.”
With the army coming into formation, he was sleeping better than he had since learning Amelia and his unborn son were most likely dead. He wouldn’t say he’d recovered, but talking to Tank had helped. Just as they were finally building a Navigator army, they’d now learned that the aliens had yet another trick up their sleeves, and they were on the back foot again. Something would have to give soon and he was determined it wouldn’t be him.
Lexie’s voice came through his speaker. “Can’t we power this thing up while we’re driving?”
“We shouldn’t mess with it. Wait until we get back to CaliTech,” he replied.
Having removed her critter suit, she was sitting inside of the truck and cradling the baby bot in her lap, idly tweaking its leg as if were alive. “But I wanna see what’s on it.”
“Quit playing with it, Lexie. You’ll break it,” he said sternly.
>
“But it uses a power pack like ours. Can’t we put a new battery in it?”
“Why can’t you just wait?”
“I’m bored and it’s a two day trip to CaliTech. We could download the data now and it’ll give us something to watch.”
Shaking his head, he took the little bot from her. “This is important, Lex. We can’t afford to mess it up.”
Ark’s voice came through his headset. “Nah, she’s right. If we can see what’s on it now, why don’t we?”
Disagreeing with Lexie came naturally to him, and knowing she couldn’t see him, he rolled his eyes at her. After stopping the truck, Ark jumped down from the roof and he and Tank plugged the little bot into one of their spare power packs. The shadow Navigators began downloading the precious data it contained, and not wanting to waste time, he ordered them to keep moving.
Ark and Lexie were a natural fit and he didn’t begrudge them their time together, but she was often indulged more than he thought she should be. She and Ally still didn’t clean up their own mess and it was usually left to him and Tank to keep their quarters tidy. Considering the state of the world, it was probably nothing worth worrying about, but he found both of them annoying. Now that Ark was dating Lexie and Tank was making moves on Ally, feeling like the odd man out, he finally understood why the military banned fraternizing.
After several hours, Amber tapped them on the grid. “We’ve got a lot of it downloaded. We’re fast forwarding through the data to get to the bottom of the nest.”
Recovering from his original desire to argue with Lexie, he now agreed the footage was a welcome break from what was an otherwise boring ride. Selecting the screens displaying a feed from the shadow Navigators, the baby bot was sliding down a hole and falling into what he assumed was the bottom of the nest. The chamber it had tumbled into was enormous and lit by the goo. After landing on its back, the little bot auto corrected and put itself upright again before marching forward.
Jonesy was driving and unable to watch the screens, he asked, “What can you see?”