by KJ Nelson
The Squatches had never shown any interest at all in humans. The only time they showed violence at all was when they were attacked. It was like humans were just another animal to them. They didn’t care what the species did unless it affected them. What changed to make them finally take notice?” Cameron asked herself looking at the Squatch as it stared at her. It seemed to want her to figure it out, she could tell from its eyes staring intently at her.
“Do you want to understand more about humans?” Cameron guessed the only thing that made sense to her. The only thing interesting about her was her position as the leader of the co-op. Maybe the aliens were surprised at how well her group worked together to survive.
The Squatch continued to stare at her without moving its eyes, she could hear its breathing pick up pace slightly. She had guessed correctly. The idea was strange to her, how could these creatures come and destroy an entire civilization, but not know who they were wiping out?
“What do you want to know?” Cameron asked, taking in how excited the creature was that she was able to figure out why she was there.
The Squatch turned and walked away. Cameron stared at its hairy back not knowing what to do. She decided to follow him even though it gave no indication that it wanted her to. They don’t communicate like we do. Cameron thought to herself, remembering how the other Squatches just stood there looking at her after killing her friends.
She realized that they just assumed she knew what they wanted. It was something she filed away in her mind to think through later if she even made it out of the room alive.
She hurried to catch up to the Squatch. Its strides were three times the length of hers, so she had to move almost at a run to keep up. Her lungs started burning again and she panted as if she were sprinting instead of barely jogging.
She hoped they weren’t going far, the slope of the room made it feel like she was always climbing uphill. Finally, after another couple of minutes of sweating and heavy breathing, the Squatch stopped before a large oval surface that came straight out of the ground. It looked similar to the mirror Cameron had in her closet in her apartment before the Crumbling.
The oval was completely smooth and looked to be made of the same material as the rest of the room. The Squatch took its large human-shaped hand and placed it in the center of the oval. It moved four of the fingers in a complex pattern and the center of the oval began to change.
Images started showing up on the surface of the oval radiating out from the creature’s hand. Cameron couldn’t tell what the images on the large screen were, there were shapes and glyphs that looked like writing from a different language.
The Squatch paused its motion and the image on the oval went away. The Squatch stepped away from the oval and stood to the side. It stared at Cameron again without moving. Cameron took it as a signal that it was time for her to do something.
She moved closer to the large oval and saw where the creature had placed its hand. It looked like some kind of input device. It was level with her vision, so she could inspect it closely. It looked like a keyboard, only the buttons were round in shape like pearls sticking out on the otherwise flat surface.
She wanted to use it, but it was too high for her hand to fit the same way the Squatches’ did. She looked behind the keyboard and noticed that it wasn’t connected to the oval screen. It just floated there, so she reached out and grabbed it and pulled on it to see if it would move.
There was quite a bit of resistance, but with enough pressure, the device moved. She placed it where it would be comfortable to use with her hands. Cameron placed four fingers on each hand the same way the Squatch had.
She was nervous to press any of the round buttons, not wanting to mess up. She took the forefinger on her right hand and gently applied pressure to the pearl-shaped button. She felt it click three times in rapid succession.
She watched as the oval screen in front of her lit up, as she looked at it, she realized it wasn’t a screen like anything she’d ever seen. The oval was covered in millions of microscopic scales. Each scale could shift and change colors. She could hear the scales move as the screen came to life.
Cameron looked over at the Squatch as it stared at her, this was obviously what the creature wanted, but she still wasn’t sure why it wanted her to play with its technology. She decided to start pressing more buttons to learn what she could do with the machine.
Over the course of five minutes, Cameron figured out that each pearl had three levels of pressure sensitivity. The first level of pressure was similar to pressing a letter on a keyboard. It made one of the strange symbols show up on the screen.
The second level of pressure made the pearl she pressed able to be rotated. This could help move the characters into a different position, or even zoom in and out of specific characters. Cameron couldn't figure out what the last level of pressure was for. Every time she accidentally clicked one of the buttons too hard, the screen would shift rapidly and she would lose her place.
Cameron slowly realized how complex the system she was playing with truly was. There were at least 30 buttons for each hand, and they each seemed to do three different things. She had no idea how to fly through the screens the way the Squatch had.
After another 10 minutes of trying to learn more about the system, the Squatch finally walked over to her and placed a large hairy hand on her shoulder. The weight of the huge Alien’s arm nearly knocked her to her knees.
“Enough.” The Squatch said right beside her ear. Cameron ducked out from under the creature’s touch and backed away from the machine. The huge monster turned to her and looked at her again for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
“You understand what this console is for?” He asked without breaking eye contact with her. Cameron could feel the importance of the question. It was the reason she was brought to the room, she knew her life depended on the answer.
“It keeps track of what’s in this room,” Cameron said, making a wild guess. It was the only thing that made sense to her. Why else would it be in what looked like a storage room?
The Squatch stared at her for a frustratingly long amount of time without answering.
“Yes.” It finally said, its eyes squinting slightly at her. “That’s correct.”
The huge creature just stared at her for another half minute. It seemed to be looking at her in a new light. It leaned in close to her, bending down on one knee to get closer to her face. She could smell the Squatch’s breath and it wasn’t as unpleasant as she thought it might be.
“My name is Agbo.” He said, nodding his head to her. He grabbed Cameron’s hand and placed a small device into her open palm. The touch of Agbo was strange to her. His fingers gripped her skin in a weird way, it felt like he had minuscule suction cups covering the naked skin on his palm.
Cameron looked down at the device she held in her hand. It was heavier than it had any right to be considering its size. It had three of the pearl-like buttons that the oval console had.
“When this vibrates, press the middle diode and follow the map,” Agbo said, pointing to the center circular button. “There is much I need you to show me.”
Cameron looked at Agbo, surprised he was going to let her go. It was such a strange encounter, Cameron was completely spent, her nerves frayed from being in constant stress for so long.
“I’ll help you if you help me,” Cameron said, taking a chance that she hoped would pay off. There was obviously something this creature needed from her, and she wasn’t going to give him what he wanted without something in return. It’s how her mind operated, give and take.
“Help?” Agbo said standing back up, his huge eyelids pulled together examining her closely again. “What do you want?”
“Food mostly, and supplies would be nice too,” Cameron said, blurting out her answer in her excitement at the possibility of not starving to death. Agbo chuckled at her request as if food was the least important thing she could have requested.
“The human wants food.” He said a
s if he were disappointed in her.
5
“So that’s where all the food was coming from?” Stafford asked, his eyes huge from hearing about Cameron’s encounter. He’d asked her several times over the last year where she was finding so much fresh produce.
Cameron nodded to him, a little ashamed at keeping it a secret. The night had rattled her to her core, and when she’d returned back to the co-op she wasn’t sure if the whole encounter was a dream. She didn’t want anyone else knowing she had allied herself with the aliens. They were hated with such a passion for what they’d done, Cameron knew no one would accept her working with them.
“I couldn’t let it get out that I was working with them,” Cameron said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. She felt bad, but she wasn’t going to tell Stafford that. She was already concerned about his reaction. Cameron sat across from him waiting for him to say something.
“I don’t like it.” He said, confirming her internal thoughts. Her left hand unconsciously drifted toward the gun on her thigh. She didn’t know what she would do if he didn’t agree with what she’d done.
“I understand it was necessary for the good of our people.” He said with a sigh, and Cameron felt the breath she’d been holding leave her lungs as well. “I do wish you would have told me, though. We could have worked together. If you died…” He trailed off, his face grim at the thought.
“I knew it was a risk, but it didn’t seem to matter since we were all dead anyway without their help,” Cameron relaxed now that everything was out in the open. “Not that it matters much now anyway.”
“How many times did you meet with him?” Stafford asked, also relaxing.
“Eight times,” Cameron said, remembering each time clearly in her mind. “The second meeting was over a month after the first, I’d thought I dreamed the whole thing. If it wasn’t for the device, I would have thought I’d gone mad.”
“Do you still have it?” Stafford asked leaning forward in interest. Cameron reached into the leg pocket of her pants and pulled it out holding it up in the dim light of the container. Stafford reached forward in awe of the tiny alien artifact.
“It’s so heavy.” He said lifting it from her hand. “Does it still work?”
“It hasn’t made a peep in two months. The buttons do nothing if you press them. I think when they left, they took whatever functionality it had with them.” Cameron was frustrated that Agbo never let her know he was leaving.
Each of the subsequent meetings with Agbo had been just as strange as the first. The second meeting had led her back to the outpost and into the bunker as she started referring to it as. Agbo showed her the oval screen and the console and let her fiddle with it for almost an hour.
She got much further the second time and realized that if she pressed the right keys in the right way, she could get the boxes on the floor to move about the space. Agbo had taken her off the console after the first set of boxes moved.
His reward for her work was an entire crate full of grain and vegetables. She’d been overwhelmed by the size of the crate but realized it had wheels and the ability to tie her horse to it. She’d secretly unloaded the supplies in one of the unused containers at the back of the yard. That night Cameron felt like she had finally done something right as a leader, not just as Warlord.
The rest of the meetings with Agbo were carried out in different locations within an hour of the shipping yard. Each interaction was stifled by Agbo’s lack of communication. Cameron had to guess what he wanted the entire time they were together. One time, she wasn’t able to understand what he wanted and she left frustrated. The other times, she would figure it out and Agbo would show his excitement at her problem-solving skills.
The last time she saw Agbo he presented her with a Freerider. She could tell he was one of them from the American flag patch he wore on his vest. He looked at her and immediately realized who she was as well.
The man accused her of being a traitor and rushed at her with a knife. She used her Glock to put a bullet in his head. Agbo seemed disappointed at the result of the meeting. Cameron thought she’d failed a crucial part of the test, even though she had no idea what the point was.
“Did you ever figure out what they wanted from you?” Stafford asked, interrupting her thoughts. It was the question that had bothered Cameron the most. Agbo had never explained it to her, and any time she asked he just stared at her with unblinking eyes.
“I have my ideas, but they never told me explicitly. It doesn’t matter now anyway, they’re leaving.” Cameron said, feeling defensive. She felt that if she’d done better maybe there would have been a better outcome.
“So what’s the plan?” Stafford asked, changing the subject sensing Cameron’s discomfort. “Are we going to just run up to the outpost and knock on the front door?” Cameron could tell he wasn’t excited about her idea, but what other choice did they have?
“It’s more like a flap instead of a door. But, yeah, that’s the general idea.” Cameron nodded in understanding of everything that could go wrong with the simplistic idea.
“And you think the room they showed you with the boxes will still be there?” Stafford asked, rubbing his hands together as if he were ready to get started.
“I have no clue. I don’t even understand how that room works, but it’s our only shot. Whatever they had in those boxes was important, and we need all the help we can get.” Cameron said knowing they were out on a limb without any support. Their backs were pressed firmly against the wall, and it would take some creativity to work their way out of it.
“When?” Stafford asked simply, ready to get it over with. She saw the resignation in his eyes and it hurt her soul more than she would ever let him know.
“Tonight,” Cameron said with finality. “Time to throw in all of our chips and see what happens.”
6
Draconius, Highlark of the Angstrom Armada spat blood out of his mouth. The tangy taste made him nauseous, if he had any food in his stomach he would have lost it. His shoulders ached from the strain of having his hands secured behind his back for the last three days.
“Can I just die already?” He thought to himself as he wheezed on the floor of the Cellosphere. Would it have been incommensurate for Delphine’s men to at least afford me the right of a dignified death?” Draconius shook his head at how he’d been treated like an Earthly sow, tied up and left to die slowly.
His enemies didn’t even have the honor to kill him with their own Bastions. Instead, they let time and hunger do their dirty work. He hated waiting for anything, even his own demise.
Draconius looked around the large oval-shaped room, taking in the dark gray membrane that made up its surface. He hated that the last thing he would see was not the hills of Valonica that surrounded his commonwealth on his home planet of Eden.
Instead, he would meet his end staring at the dark gray Cellosphere floor. He knew he couldn’t make it another day without some sort of nutrition.
That was part of Delphine’s punishment. He wanted to prove that Draconius couldn’t save himself from death. His best friend knew him so well, that even in betrayal, Delphine found a way to showcase that knowledge.
Draconius pulled at the magnetic cuffs that held all four of his appendages together for the thousandth time. He wasn’t strong enough to break the connection, and he had nothing that would help him out of his predicament.
He laid there on his stomach waiting for death. He hummed the song his mother sang to him when he was a child. It was about Eden in the long summer months where all the world sang in delight at being alive.
As unconsciousness found him, Draconius welcomed death. He had failed at the moment of his greatest victory. The prize of Earth’s resources were stolen from him, and his ships were leaving him behind on a desolate planet to die.
He dreamed of violence and vengeance.
7
Cameron went back to her apartment to rest and prepare for her excursion with Staffor
d. They decided to leave at dusk in hopes of avoiding any trouble. The last thing she wanted was to be followed, or worse have a run-in with the Freeriders.
As she walked up to her front doors, she saw the lock she’d used to secure her home had been tampered with. She could see where someone had used metal to try and pick the lock. The keyhole was almost damaged beyond use.
She struggled for a minute to get her key to slide into the opening. Once she’d forced it to open, she grabbed one of her guns as she opened one of the doors. She looked inside to see the room empty of any intruders.
She moved around the bed and the dresser to make sure no one was hiding, and then closed the door with a loud bang. She grabbed a new lock, out of a cabinet and secured the door from the inside.
Cameron knew people were desperate for food, but she felt unnerved that someone had tried to break into her container directly. Someone must have thought she was holding resources back from the group.
It was true that she had a stockpile that she and Stafford were holding back, but it wasn’t out of selfishness. It was so that people wouldn’t eat everything they had all at once then starve to death even quicker.
Cameron shivered at the thought of the people whose family members died finding out about the stockpile. It would be the end of her time as Warlord and probably the end of her life. It was for the better good. She told herself as she sat down in her La-Z-Boy recliner and untied her tall black boots.
That was the truth, but when she thought about what she would do if her plan failed, she knew who she would choose. She wasn’t going to die so that other people could live. She wanted to save them if she could, but Cameron knew she would choose herself if it came down to it.
Cameron relaxed in her chair sinking into the comfort of the memory foam. The only thing that bothered her was the gnawing of her stomach from lack of food.
Cameron woke with a start as she heard a loud booming on her door. It sounded like someone was trying to knock the door down. Cameron checked her holsters to make sure she had her guns and went over to the door.