by SD Tanner
From the viewpoint of a tiny bot making its way along a shiny floor, it was difficult to understand what he was seeing. Ahead of the bot was a large claw and it looked twenty times the size of one on a critter.
“Is that an optical illusion or is that biggest claw we’ve ever seen?” He asked incredulously.
The bot had multiple cameras that had filmed concurrently and Amber switched the screens to multi view. Now he could see six different views of the chamber, but only one of them had his attention. It was positioned on top of the bot, pointing upward so that the full body of the creature was visible.
“Amber, can you zoom in on that?” Ark asked.
Amber answered him by zeroing in on the body of the creature. The craters on its black torso became fuzzier before the screen corrected itself. The bumps and pits along its surface grew clearer and his jaw dropped in shock. “Are they faces?”
In response to his question, Amber zoomed in closer and paused the image. Lying flat against the creature’s body and staring back at him was a human face. It was molded into the creature’s rubbery side and its eyes were wide-open, revealing human irises.
“You have got to be shitting me!” Tank exclaimed in disgust.
As if the molded face wasn’t bad enough, he thought he recognized it. Tilting his head to the side as if it would jog his memory, he asked, “Do I know that guy?”
“That’s not funny,” Ally replied unhappily. “That poor man is trapped inside of that thing.”
“It’s fucking enormous,” Tank said in awe.
Sounding exasperated, Jonesy asked, “What can you see?”
“He’s not the only one in there,” Amber added. “There are more faces on it.”
“Gross,” Lexie muttered.
“Seriously, I know that guy.”
Sounding defeated, Ark said, “Damn, I do too.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Colonel Boris Meecham.”
“Wasn’t he a dickhead?”
“Yep, and now he’s the dickhead who’s giving our enemy intel about us.”
“How do you know he’s giving it intel?” He asked.
“What else would it want Boris for? Let’s face it, nobody wanted Boris.”
“Who’s Boris?” Jonesy asked.
“That dickhead from NORAD,” Ark replied dourly. “His face is plastered on the torso of an enormous thing inside of the nest. It kinda looks like a lumpy critter, only it’s about twenty times bigger.”
Before they had time to react to the news, Dayton’s voice came through their headsets. “Ark, you need to hear something.”
“Go ahead, Dayton,” Ark replied with a sigh.
The sound of Cassie’s voice came through his headset. “Transport in position. Retrieval in progress.”
“Dayton, is she saying anything else?” Ark asked.
“No, but she keeps repeating the same thing, so I figured it must be important.”
“What’s the transport and what’s it retrieving?” He asked.
Nobody could answer his questions and Ark asked, “Amber, have you got all of the data from the baby bot?”
“Pretty much. Why?”
“I think we need to go to Albuquerque.”
Puzzled by Ark’s sudden change of plan, he asked, “Why? What do think is there?”
“I dunno, but people are being transformed and the medical team think they’re empty vessels. Now Cassie is saying there’s a retrieval in progress. Whatever they’re retrieving has to be coming from the prisons and Albuquerque is the closest one to where we are.”
“Jonesy, turn us around,” he ordered
CHAPTER EIGHT: Act II (Mike)
Living inside of the underground building with the main screens that controlled the satellites and missiles was becoming suffocating. With more Navigators being trained, CaliTech had sent one squad to guard their little home, but they weren’t very experienced with their gear. If anything, the squad relied on his engineers to maintain their Navigator suits and that wasn’t working out well. Without the skills or the time, they’d wasted hours on the radio with the CaliTech engineers trying to unravel problems with the gear. If anyone had asked his opinion, he would have said Ark was trying to run before he could walk, but he suspected no one wanted to hear that.
Studying the screens in front of him, with months of accrued fatigue, his vision blurred and he removed his glasses, wiping them against his shirt as if they were the problem. Ark expected them to check the footage captured by the satellites and advise him of any anomalies. It meant they were maintaining records to assess which cities were under critter control, how many there were, and guessing at the number of prisoners. Ark didn’t appreciate just how much footage the satellites were able to capture and how long it took to scan each set. His team of only twenty were working sixteen-hour shifts, seven days a week and they never caught up with the endless stream.
As if continuously watching boring footage weren’t enough work, Ark would also call on them to bomb specific targets. He didn’t think the man appreciated how difficult it was to ensure that they had the right coordinates, the weapons were primed, and that they’d hit the targets in just the way he wanted. Movies had greatly misled the public about how missile technology worked, and although much of it was idiot proofed, that couldn’t be said of the nuclear weapons. He supposed it made sense inasmuch as no one wanted an idiot capable of using a weapon that delivered such complete and long-lasting destruction.
“What in the hell is that?” One of his engineers exclaimed.
Being bored, he was used to his team exaggerating the importance of every little thing they found. “What is it?”
“I dunno. That’s why I asked.”
“Woah, what the fuck is that?” Another engineer called.
Pushing back his chair, he kicked at the floor so that it rolled across to the excited engineers. Staring at the large screen, he was surprised to see a dirty and battered, dull bronze colored metal filling it. “What is that?”
“I just asked you that.”
Using the touch screen, he zoomed in and tried to understand the composition of the material. It looked metallic, but the skin was pitted. The surface reminded him of an orange, with small pits and dips spread unevenly across its surface.
“Where is it?”
“Over Albuquerque.”
Giving the bearded and longhaired engineer a surprised look, he asked, “What do you mean it’s over Albuquerque?”
Instead of replying, the engineer zoomed out from the metallic surface until he could see the shape of the object hovering in the air. It was a flat oval that must have been at least a mile long; covering the entire downtown area of what he assumed was Albuquerque. Now looking down at the whole of the disc shaped object, he realized it was a UFO in the most literal meaning of the term. This was not a weather balloon or some secret government business; it was a genuinely unidentified flying object.
“Seriously? UFO?”
Engineers on the shift had clustered around the screen, only now they stood back unsure what to do next. Knowing Ark would ask him all sorts of questions, he began directing his shift team.
“Get me exact measurements for that. Someone do a check on the main cities for any more of these things. Set me up some distanced and close up images for Ark. He’s gonna want to see this thing.”
His brusque orders broke the shock amongst the engineers, and they threw themselves into their seats, while divvying up the tasks between them. Unfortunately, a satellite could only look down on earth, so he couldn’t see what the enormous UFO might be doing to the city. Sitting at his own console, he studied a close up image of its flat surface, zooming in more sharply. The closer he looked, the more he realized the pitted surface was largely uniform, but still contained unique patterns and swirls, hinting that it had been manufactured in an inconsistent way. Similar to the surface of a critter, it had a smoothness that only became unique the closer it was scanned. Given the critter
s were derived from humans, it made sense that each was mostly the same with almost imperceptible differences in the surface of their skin. Studying the UFO made him wonder how it had been created. Was it another repurposing of cells that had once been alive?
While his engineers continued to talk between themselves, he slipped in his earpiece and tapped into the grid. “Ark, are you on?”
“Go ahead.”
“Err, we’ve found something over Albuquerque.”
“You mean in Albuquerque.”
“No, I mean it’s over it.”
“What is it?”
“Can’t really say. It’s umm…well, it’s literally an unidentified flying object.”
“Huh. Send us images.”
An icon popped onto his screen and without turning around, he gave his engineers the thumbs up signal, indicating he’d gotten their images. Once he’d sent them to CaliTech, the shadow Navigators would make them available to everyone on the grid.
“Got ‘em,” Ark said. “Interesting. How big is that thing?”
An engineer shoved a scrap of paper under his nose and on it were detailed measurements. Knowing Ark wouldn’t care to be too specific, he gave him a summary. “It appears to be oval shaped. Approximately one mile long and three quarters of a mile wide. We can’t tell you the depth. There’s nothing on the surface other than it has a uniform pitting, kinda like an orange.”
“Is it giving off any heat?”
Snapping his fingers above his head, another engineer rolled his chair across to his desk and shook his head. “We don’t think so.”
“Is this the only one?”
Turning to look at his team, he raised his eyebrows. One of the engineers immediately pointed at a large screen bolted to the wall. A sped up and short piece of footage showed another one was moving into position over what looked like New York.
“We’re still checking, but we have one in New York.”
“What are they doing?”
“We can’t see underneath them, so we don’t know.”
Ark was silent for a moment and then he said, “We’re on our way to Albuquerque anyway, so we’ll check it out. In the meantime, I need you to look for more of those things. Any information is useful, even guesswork. Stay in contact.”
He was about to sign off from the grid when he heard screaming coming from somewhere inside of the building. It was loud enough to be heard by Ark, who asked, “What’s going on?”
Already out of his chair, he was moving towards the door when he shouted, “Dunno. Hang on.”
The door to the corridor was open and the room opposite was being used as temporary living quarters. The bulky body of a Navigator filled the doorway. “Stay put. We’ve got critters inside of the bunker.”
Their last encounter with the critters had killed the bulk of the people living inside of the bunker, leaving the rest of them trapped. Most of the soldiers had lost their lives fighting against the critters so that he and others could make their way into a storage room filled with supplies. After being held prisoner inside of the room for a month, they had been rescued by a squad of Navigators. He would have left NORAD then, but Ark had told him that access to the satellites and missiles was critical to their survival. Grateful for their help, they had all agreed to stay, but only if Ark promised they would never be trapped again. It had taken Ark over a month to assign them a squad of Navigators and their bulky presence had been enough to restore their confidence. Bill had assured him that lightening never struck the same place twice, but it appeared he was wrong.
Reflected in the Navigator’s visor, all he could see was his own anxious face. “Where are they?”
Seeming to hesitate, the man replied, “Everywhere. We’re gonna lock you inside of this building. You need to sit tight.”
Since their narrow escape from the critters, they all lived and worked inside of one building, keeping a large supply of food and water with them. When they’d set up their new home, he’d thought they were simply being neurotic, but here they were again surrounded by critters. If they needed to hunker down again then at least they wouldn’t starve.
“How did they get in?”
“We don’t know. All of the exits were secured, but maybe we missed one.”
It was an old site filled with secrets and plans made by people who were long gone. Nobody left alive could claim to know everything about NORAD, so it was possible a hatch or a door hidden inside of the massive site was missed. With their advanced viewing, he had hoped the Navigators would find every possible entrance, but now he assumed they hadn’t gotten them all.
“How many critters are there?”
“Hundreds.”
Last time the critters had been equally as trapped as they were, but these new ones would be healthy and able to come and go as they pleased. His face was still reflected on the Navigator’s visor and it went from an expression of anxiety to dismay. If the Navigators went outside of the building, they would be overwhelmed and die saving them, just as the soldiers had.
Coming to an abrupt decision, he said firmly, “No, not again. You stay in here with us. I’ll contact Ark and he’ll send reinforcements.”
Shaking his head, the Navigator replied, “This is my job.”
Peering into the visor, he spoke with an intensity he didn’t know he felt. “Since Boris left, I’m in command of NORAD and no means no. You’ll die out there and what good will that do? You stay in here with us and stop them from breaking in. That’s your job.”
Flicking his visor up, the man looked back at him with eyes so dark he couldn’t see his irises. “Yes, sir.”
When the Navigator flicked his visor down, he began issuing instructions to his squad. Satisfied the man would follow his orders, he returned to the control room.
“Ark, we’re under attack. Hundreds of critters are inside of the bunker. We can hold out in the main control building until you get here.”
“Where are your navs?”
“Inside of the control building with us. I ordered them not to go outside.”
“Good call. We’re on our way. Stay in radio contact.”
CHAPTER NINE: Navigator down (Ark)
“NORAD is under attack. We’re turning around and heading north.”
Bill’s shocked voice came through his headset. “What? Again? Why would they attack it again? It’s been months since the last attack.”
NORAD was a secured site and he’d assumed, providing they’d sealed the entrances, it would remain safe. He’d been more worried about a repeat attack on CaliTech and had made sure there were always Navigators roaming the region. Learning that NORAD was again at risk of being lost had caught him by surprise. After months of being secure, he couldn’t understand why the critters had chosen now to attack it.
“I don’t know, but Mike has his people and the Navigators secured inside of the control room building. He says they can hold out. You need to stay in radio contact with him while we get the troops into position.”
“How many critters are there?”
“He said hundreds are already inside of the bunker.”
“That’ll mean there’s more outside of it.”
“Maybe, but we don’t know how they got inside.”
“So?”
“My understanding is NORAD has multiple hidden entrances, some of which lead to military bases up to a mile away from the site. Even if there are more critters waiting to get inside, they might not be anywhere near the bunker.”
Bill paused and then said decisively, “Okay, maybe Mike can get some satellite images up for their location. I’ll check with him. How are you planning to take on hundreds of critters?”
“I’m not sure. Using the side hatch won’t work this time, we’d be forced to funnel the navs inside and that’s a suicide mission. Check with Mike if he can get the main doors open.”
“Roger that. How many squads do you want me to send across to NORAD?”
They had about eighty squads in various
stages of training, but he didn’t want to leave CaliTech undefended. The creature inside of the nest was prone to attacking where and when they least expected and this current assault could be a double bluff.
“Send me the best trained ten squads in CaliTech. Load them up with extra firepower and have them on the road within the hour.”
“Roger that, but are you sure that’s enough? Fifty navs versus hundreds of critters doesn’t sound survivable to me.”
“Unless we bring every nav we’ve got then nothing is guaranteed. We’ll just have to be smart about it. We can’t afford to lose NORAD, particularly now the creature has brought its bigger buddies to the party.”
Bill sounded weary when he replied, “Yeah, I saw that too. What do you think it is?”
“I dunno, but let’s deal with one problem at a time. We’ll sort out NORAD and then head back to Albuquerque.”
Even driving continuously at top speed, it would take all of the squads at least two days to make it to Cheyenne Mountain. With no idea whether the critters were surrounding the site, they agreed to rendezvous at a ranch just north of Penrose. Whoever got there first would advise the others whether it was a safe place to meet, and if it weren’t then they would coordinate through CaliTech to meet elsewhere. The trip north was dull and the only surprise was the lack of critters. Their tunnels still crisscrossed the land, but they were largely empty, making him wonder where they’d gone. With the arrival of the UFO, he suspected they had returned to the cities, but he didn’t know why. If more people had been encased in goo and transformed into the pale creatures then he assumed they were planning to transport them somewhere.
Arriving at the rendezvous point the next day, everyone was relieved to get out of the truck. Ten more squads arrived the day after and they hunkered down to talk about how they would get inside of the secured bunker.
“Mike can open the main doors,” he said to Hood and Stax. “If we form a line across them then we can walk in under a hail of gunfire.”
“And once we’re in?” Hood asked.
“We keep shooting until we’re out of ammo and the second row can take over while we pull back and reload.”