Defenders

by Will McIntosh

  The hum of machinery interrupted his thoughts; Oliver turned. The big forklift was bringing Five, still caged, into the room.

  The defender’s reaction was immediate. It stood, stared at Five, craning its neck to see the Luyten better. Then it began to pace, never taking its eyes off Five, keeping a uniform distance.

  “This is the first time it’s ever been in the presence of a Luyten,” Wiewall whispered. “They’re conditioned to despise them.”

  The defender looked down, then back up at the Luyten.

  “Is the Luyten communicating with you?” Wiewall asked.

  “No. Five’s giving me the silent treatment.” Oliver raised his voice. “Aren’t you, Five?”

  I wonder if Vanessa went ahead and fucked Paul after you were so convinced she already had. Maybe they’re living together now.

  Oliver did his best to ignore the comment. This was too important; he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.

  The defender paused in front of a table built in along the wall. It picked something up, then resumed pacing. Oliver squinted, straining to see what the defender had picked up.

  It was a bayonet. Large enough to look formidable in the defender’s hand.

  “What’s it doing?” Oliver asked. He looked around, but no one responded. There were about a dozen people present now. All eyes were on the defender.

  Oliver turned, studied Five, who was watching the defender. There was nothing in its manner that might indicate whether it knew what the defender was thinking, although Oliver had always struggled to read the Luyten’s body language.

  The defender stopped pacing. Its mouth a tight line, it took a deep breath through its nose, exhaled. With shocking speed, it hurled the bayonet at Five.

  An instant later, the bayonet was embedded in one of Five’s limbs—it had gone right through the eye set in that limb. A cawing filled the room, multiple voices squawking in an eerie harmony. It took Oliver a moment to realize it was Five, screaming in pain and surprise through all of his mouths at once.

  He hadn’t even tried to duck. The attack had caught Five completely by surprise.

  Oliver rushed toward the Luyten. Five was gripping the bayonet with the cilia that served as his hand, pulling carefully, trembling from the pain.

  “Kill you all,” Five said aloud, the pitch of his voice rising and falling. Gasps ran through the small crowd.

  Five worked the knife out a half inch. Black blood dribbled from the ruined eye, pooling along the ridge that ran from each limb, spiraling to the center of his body.

  “They won’t stop us. We’ll kill you all.” Five pried the bayonet farther.

  “Can somebody help it, for God’s sake?” Oliver said. He glanced at the people now clustered around Five’s prison. “Are any of you medical personnel?”

  A man with heavy jowls studied Oliver, then glanced at Five. “Let it bleed awhile.”

  Oliver pointed into the cage. “That’s the only Luyten who has ever communicated with a human being. Do you really want to let it die?”

  Drawn out of a stunned stupor by Oliver’s raised voice, Colonel Willis said, “He’s right. Get the thing patched up.”

  The man studied Five. “We’ll have to sedate it first.”

  Oliver opened his mouth to argue, then realized it would be foolish to insist Five was not dangerous. Five was very dangerous.

  He stepped back, rejoining Wiewall. “So now we know.”

  Wiewall nodded, clearly unnerved. Whether she was shaken by the attack on Five or Five speaking, Oliver didn’t know. “It was an ingenious test. Whoever devised it must have left the island before the Luyten arrived, so it wouldn’t be forewarned.”

  On the far side of the room, the defender had resumed pacing. Occasionally it lifted its head to look at Five. Oliver wondered just how the test had been arranged. “I’m going to speak to it.” He gestured at the defender. “Does it have a name?”

  “Robert. They’re all male, though they have no genitalia.”

  As Oliver approached, the size and mass of the thing became more apparent, and more intimidating. It continued pacing, evidently unable to relax in the presence of a Luyten. Oliver could relate to that.

  “Excuse me. Robert?”

  The defender considered him, snorting air through its long nose, reminding Oliver of a bull.

  “Who instructed you to injure the Luyten with the bayonet?”

  The defender frowned. “No one. Colonel Willis ordered me to determine whether the Luyten could read my thoughts. It can’t.”

  “No, it can’t.” Oliver’s mind was reeling. The defenders were definitely more intelligent than they looked. Their faces were stiff, didn’t express much in the way of emotion, but he shouldn’t have been fooled into thinking that reflected their intellectual ability. He thanked Robert and returned to Wiewall, who’d been watching from a distance.

  “Robert devised the test himself.”

  Wiewall tilted her head. “I’m surprised. Pleased, but surprised. They’re engineered and trained to be skilled tacticians, but still, that’s impressive problem solving.”

  “What happens now?”

  Watching Robert pace, and glower at Five, she said, “Now we make more.”

  15

  Oliver Bowen

  May 9, 2030. Washington, D.C.

  Oliver watched the city go by through the limo’s one-way glass. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. The D.C. area gave you a deceptive perspective on what was happening in the world. It wasn’t that D.C. was the same as it had been before the invasion, but the fortifications around the entire D.C.-Alexandria area were so heavy you felt a sense of safety and stability.

  The limo pulled to a stop in front of Vanessa’s apartment, a walk-up in a luxury complex, and Oliver’s heart rate doubled. He had no idea how she would react to him showing up at her door. In the weeks since Five revealed it had lied, Oliver had rehearsed a hundred things to say, imagined all the reactions Vanessa might have.

  He raised his fist and knocked.

  Vanessa looked surprised to see him, and that gave him hope. She didn’t look angry, at least. But she didn’t invite him in, either; she only stared at him, wide-eyed, clutching the door.

  “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Vanessa began to look, if not angry, then at least unhappy.

  He stammered, words eluding him. After all the time he’d spent planning what he’d say to Vanessa, he found his mind blank. “I’m so sorry.”

  Vanessa folded her arms. “How did you finally figure it out?”

  “Five—the Luyten—told me it had lied.” He didn’t know whether to refer to Five as it, or he, or she. None sounded right, so he found himself switching back and forth.

  She gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Maybe it’s lying now. Maybe you should find another starfish to corroborate Five’s claim before jumping to any conclusions.”

  Oliver licked his extremely dry lips. “I know I should have believed you instead of it, but if you understood what it was like, how it gets inside your head.” He stabbed a finger at his temple. “It knows exactly what buttons to push, it knows your fears and insecurities, all of your secrets.” He took a deep breath, trying to control his rising emotions.

  Vanessa’s arms were still tightly crossed. She looked past him, into the street. “A limo?”

  “I’ve been promoted. I’m the CIA Director of Science and Technology, and a special advisor to President Wood.” Oliver wanted to tell Vanessa about his work, about the small part he’d played in the defenders project, but it was still technically classified. He’d been allowed to leave Easter Island now that eight heavily defended production facilities were up and running, and keeping their existence secret from the Luyten was all but impossible, but that didn’t mean he could talk about the project with anyone he chose.

  “Wow, congratulations,” Vanessa said, sounding sincere, if not particularly enthusiastic.

  “I’m going to adopt Kai—the orphan who
discovered—”

  “I know who Kai is,” Vanessa said, cutting him off. She was back to looking surprised. “You told me you never wanted children. You said they made you uncomfortable.”

  “They do.” He shrugged. “But someone has to take care of him.” He’d hoped telling Vanessa about Kai would reform him in her eyes, make him seem worthy of forgiveness. That wasn’t the reason he was doing it, but still, he’d hoped. He waited for some kind word he could build on.

  “Why did you come here, Oliver?”

  “I came to apologize. I should have trusted you. I’m sorry.”

  “Oliver—”

  “The truth is, I believed Five because I couldn’t believe you could really love me. It was so hard to see how you could. But, believe it or not, Five’s psychological attacks have opened my eyes to—”

  “Oliver.”

  He knew what she was about to say—he could read it in her eyes, and he didn’t want to hear it. “Just spend some time with me, and you’ll see. I’m not asking you to forgive me, just give me some of your time—”

  “No,” she said, simply, emphatically. “No. You’re right, I can’t forgive you for this. For leaving me in the middle of this.” She started to lift her arms, then let them flop back to her sides. “Maybe the end of the world is supposed to make things like this seem insignificant, but for me, it hasn’t. It’s set me on a razor’s edge. There’s right, and there’s wrong.” Vanessa rubbed her upper lip, shaking her head. “And what you did was wrong. You were supposed to believe me. You were supposed to take my side.”

  Oliver had no response. Her answer was one he’d anticipated, but even imagining the words, he’d never come up with a reply.

  He wanted to say goodbye but didn’t trust himself to get the words out steadily. Instead, he nodded, then headed down the steps.

  16

  Oliver Bowen

  May 21, 2030. Washington, D.C.

  With each swing of his arms, Oliver could feel his underarms gliding on slick sweat. He was short of breath, as if he were sprinting to the war room instead of walking.

  A dozen or so people were talking in low tones, clumped here and there around the huge circular room, waiting for the meeting to start. The war room was built like an amphitheater, with the center the lowest point, and each subsequent ring of seats and electronics a few steps higher. Oliver spotted Ariel silently working her screen and took a seat beside her.

  She looked up, nodded once, went back to work.

  “Can you fill me in?”

  Ariel stopped working. “I figured you knew more than I did. Five isn’t keeping you updated?”

  “Five does nothing but hurl insults at me, on the rare occasions when he deigns to speak to me at all.”

  Before Ariel could respond, President Wood entered, flanked by Secretary of Defense Oteri, Secretary of State Nielsen, and his senior advisor, his brother Carmine. He raised his voice to be heard, showing no interest in sitting.

  “The starfish are massing around the cities housing defender production facilities. Every single facility. We don’t have nearly as many defenders as we’d like, but unless someone in here says something to change my mind, I’m going to advise Premier Chandar to release what we have immediately. Their primary mission will be to defend those production facilities.”

  Raising his shoulders, the president waited, looking around the room at individual faces. He stopped on Oliver’s. “Dr. Bowen. Oliver. What does our resident starfish have to say about all this?”

  “He stopped communicating with me after Easter Island.”

  “Probably smart of it,” President Wood said. He resumed his scan of the room. “So? Does anyone want to voice an objection? What do we risk by having them fight now, besides affording them less time to train?”

  Evidently no one could think of objections. The Luyten were clearly aware of the defenders and understood they were a threat. The secret was out. Given that nine facilities were now in operation, it wasn’t surprising.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Secretary of Defense Oteri asked. She was built like a bulldog—short, squat, with thinning black hair and a bulb nose. “Deploy one battalion first, so we can assess its effectiveness, maybe learn some things we can pass on to the other forces. It will take the Luyten time to mass numbers large enough to storm those facilities.”

  The president shrugged, looked around the room for reaction.

  “We could send the Easter Island force into Santiago,” said Wood’s brother Carmine, who was tall and extremely thin, almost skeletal. “In fact, the Algarrobo nuclear plant is only twenty miles outside Santiago. If they could retake the largest power plant in South America while securing the defender production facility in Santiago, that would be huge. We need energy. Badly.”

  There were murmurs of agreement.

  “We need to see what they’re capable of on a mission before we set them all loose,” Oteri added. “Once we set them loose, that’s it. They become a fully independent fighting force—allies, more than anything.”

  “But if we set them loose in Santiago, aren’t we giving the Luyten a chance to learn from that encounter as well?” Secretary Nielsen asked in his customary dulcet tone. Nielsen was soft-spoken, balding, with a full reddish beard.

  Ariel waved her hand and waited for the president to recognize her like a child in class. “As the Luyten mass, their communication grid breaks down. They cut themselves off from one another as their web configuration folds. Do they have electronic communication?”

  “Not much,” Oteri said. “They have some they seized from us that they use to communicate across oceans and deserts and so on, but they don’t have the capability to transmit visual recordings of a battle, or detailed schematics. They’re used to passing information instantaneously, through their telepathic network.”

  Wood took a deep breath, let it out. “All right. I’ll send a recommendation to Premier Chandar that we launch an attack on Santiago and the Algarrobo nuclear plant as soon as possible.” Since the president was the World Alliance’s minister of defense, it seemed certain the premier would go along with his recommendation.

  17

  Dominique Wiewall

  May 25, 2030. Easter Island.

  When the colonel put his hand on her knee, Dominique wanted to hack it off with a knife, but instead had to settle for shifting to the left to dislodge it. How dare he use this, the culminating moment of all of their work, to pull this kind of stunt?

  She’d been drunk the night she slept with him. Extremely drunk. Also wallowing in a modicum of self-pity, because it had been her birthday. She’d regretted it the moment it was over, before she’d even sobered up. When she did sober up, she more than regretted it—she’d been mortified. Not that Colonel Willis was unattractive, he was just… too military. A walking stereotype. It made him seem clownish in Dominique’s eyes.

  Shaking off the memory of his pale body rocking atop hers, Dominique focused on the feeds. They had three to start. Some might be knocked out once combat began, but hopefully not all. They needed to collect as much information as possible about the defenders’ performance. It would be tricky, to pass on recommendations that might aid the defenders in subsequent engagements without passing on information that might help the Luyten, who would undoubtedly intercept everything they sent.

  Her pulse was racing. These were her children. Many, many others had helped, but no one would argue that she was the primary architect. Besides everything at stake for humanity, Dominique felt in a very personal way that her life would be either vindicated or ruined in the next few hours. She was so glad she’d opted to stay on Easter Island. No one off the island would witness this, not even the premier.

  Dominique was cautiously optimistic that the defenders would do well. The Luyten depended heavily on knowing their enemy’s minds; they’d had no need to develop tactical expertise in battle. And while their weapons were sophisticated, most only had what was embedded in the biologically grown sui
t that fit them like a second skin. The defenders, by contrast, knew nothing but military tactics, and were armed to the teeth.

  Dominique watched the feed from one of the little aerial butterfly cameras, which was temporarily perched on the helmet of the operation’s commander, a defender named Douglas. He was traveling with the Airborne Battalion, briefing his officers in a clipped baritone, squatting in the hold of the huge stealth-enabled C-5, which was typically used to transport heavy artillery and buses. She enabled the sound.

  “We establish two separate LZs. The first, five miles north-northeast of the objective.” Douglas pointed to the spot on the relief map. The first LZ, which Dominique assumed meant landing zone, lit up in red. “The second, five miles south-southeast.” He marked this one as well. “One squad from each drop zone will be designated as a security squad and will move as follows: From drop zone one, directly north. From drop zone two, directly south. The northern moving squad will secure Highway 60 and establish a perimeter defense. The southern moving squad will secure Highway 5. The full security squad will deny any Luyten movement from west to east—”

  From what she knew of military tactics, the plan seemed solid. It soothed her drumming heart, how competent the commander sounded.

  “—additional squad will be dropped in the southern LZ and will proceed to the area just north of San Antonio. Center of gravity, CP, and HQ will be established at that location, here, ten miles south-southeast of the objective.”

  A commander named Luigi was overseeing the defense of the production facility in Santiago, but taking the power plant was the more challenging of the two missions. Not only did the Luyten already hold it, but the defenders couldn’t use large weapons to bombard the plant, because they needed it to be operational. To compensate, they were sending a large force—120 defenders.

  “Here they go,” Colonel Willis said, leaning forward. Dominique reflexively drew her leg away, afraid he’d use the shift in posture as an opportunity to reestablish an LZ on her thigh.