Within seconds, a detail of soldiers hurried into the clinic. “Ma’am, what’s going on?” one of them asked her.
She stood. “This man is an imposter. He’s not an Army colonel; he’s a disgraced NSA agent. And he’s trying to abduct me.”
“She’s lying men. Seize her. The president has just named her a threat to national security!”
The soldiers didn’t seem to know what to do. “Guys. You’ve all seen me. Ever since the aliens first came. Have any of you seen this guy before?”
“Corporal! I order to you to arrest this woman immediately! On the orders of the Commander-in-Chief!”
Just then, a half-dozen Wakira, in their shiny black armor rushed through the door and took up positions beside her. They pointed their weapons at the soldiers. The soldiers pointed their weapons at them.
“Easy males,” she said calmly. “The only threat is the man standing directly in front of me. Everyone lower your weapons.” The Wakira complied first. The soldiers soon followed.
“Miss Hodges, you are under arrest for treason and murder. You will come with me.”
Jennifer looked over both shoulders, as if to remind Bryant that he would have to defeat the alien males in the room, plus who knew how many hundreds more in the hovering ship. “I don’t think so, Special Agent Bryant.” She turned her back to the man and looked at the male who had been behind her left shoulder. “Ohhhh,” she said in their language. “Is that a tangler?”
“Yes Mother.”
“Good.” She turned back to face the imposter. In English she said, “Tangle the annoying one please.”
“Yes Mother,” the alien said in English. He quickly raised his left hand and squeezed the trigger of the small weapon in that hand.
Immediately, strands of energy formed around Bryant, and fastened themselves tightly around him. Two of the soldiers raised their weapons.
“As you were!” she said brusquely. “He’s unharmed. Just unable to move.” To Bryant, she added, “Stop struggling, Special Agent. The more you struggle, the tighter it’ll constrict. If you remain motionless, it won’t be unpleasant. Keep struggling, and it will end up breaking bones.” She looked at the soldiers. “Relax. A couple of weeks ago, on a lark, I had one of the Wakira tangle me on a very light setting. I wanted to see what it was like. It works without causing pain, if the target refrains from struggling.” She noticed that Bryant was continuing to try and pull his weapon from its holster. “Private, please carefully get his pistol away from him. If he keeps trying to draw it, his wrist will snap.”
The private carefully reached in between the strands and pulled the pistol away.
“Thank you. Oh male!” she turned to face the one who had fired. “You managed to tangle his mouth shut. Excellent shooting.” She turned back to face the Terrans. “The problem now is, how do we get him to wherever the General will want him. We can’t just do a fireman’s carry, folding him over will cause the strands to continue constricting.”
One of the soldiers near the big window overlooking Main said “What about a hand truck?”
“A hand truck?” Jennifer asked. “Where are we going to get one of those?”
“We could borrow the one the guy across the street is using,” another suggested.
“Huh? What guy across the street?”
The first one said “There’s a man across the street unloading a delivery van. He’s stacking his delivery onto a hand truck.”
“Delivery? Across the street?”
“Yes Ma’am. Almost directly across from here.”
Jennifer started moving towards the window. “The store with the two small gargoyles over the door?”
“If that’s what they’re called, yes Ma’am.”
She stood at the window and looked out at the scene. Sure enough, she could see one lone man in civilian clothes pulling large cardboard boxes out of the back of the van and putting them onto a hand truck. “Boys, I think someone needs to ask this guy some questions.”
“Why Ma’am?”
“That store has been empty since 2010. And there’s no way that it’s being reopened. The interior was gutted by arson in 2011. The only things holding up the facade are the buildings on either side of it. Go check him out.”
Two privates left and headed over to the delivery van. Most of the rest of the detail exited and stood out on the sidewalk, along with four Wakira. “Hey pal!” one of the privates greeted the man, cheerily. “Need any help?”
The man looked nervous. “Uhhhh, no. I’m fine thanks. Almost done actually.”
The first private stood to the man’s right, the other went behind him and stood on his left. “Gee pal, those boxes sure look heavy. You sure you don’t want some help?” the first one asked.
Before he could answer, the other private picked up one of the boxes. “Geez, Donny. These are as light as a feather. Maybe even lighter.”
The man glanced furtively at both of them. Out of sight, a jeep with MPs stopped in the intersection, just 40 feet away. “Hey pally! Neat idea! You’re selling boxes of non-compressed air to people. What a great money-making idea, huh Mac?” he asked his partner. The delivery man’s body seemed to tense. “Hey buddy, y’know, I bet those intelligence guys at HQ here would love to hear all about your idea. Why don’t you come with us and you can tell them how it all works. Huh?”
Donny started to reach for the man’s arm, but instead got shoved to the ground. The delivery man started running north, not noticing the MPs standing there. One of them shouted “Halt!” while another fired his taser at the fugitive. One of the Wakira had started to run after him, but stopped and watched as a second taser struck. Both Donny and Mac hurried over. The Wakira looked at them and said, “Electricity?”
“Yeah. Works every time,” Donny said proudly.
“That appears to be somewhat painful.”
“It’s supposed to be painful,” Mac commented.
“Ohh,” said the Wakira, looking at the two of them. “I am glad that we are all on the same side then.”
Both the Army detail and the Wakiran males were milling around outside the clinic with Jennifer when Comiston showed up. “When will the excitement ever end?” she asked him, exasperated.
“The accomplice started singing before they put him into the interrogation room,” he told her. “The President is about to give the Director of Homeland Security a verbal lashing. We have reason to believe that Bryant killed a fellow NSA agent in Arizona a couple of weeks ago. The agent had been assigned to infiltrate potential home-grown terrorist groups. Most of the eight terrorists captured or killed were from the same community in Arizona. The only thing that Bryant has said is ‘Earth First’. We’re assuming that that’s their slogan.”
“Should I expect any more attempts on my life anytime soon, General?”
He drew alongside and gently placed his left hand on her back. “I’ve been told that there are no known threats. I’ll have extra men checking the IDs of everyone in town. If there are any non-residents around, we’ll detain them — before the end of tomorrow. That’s a promise, Miss Hodges.” He eyed her closely. “How did you know who he was?”
She pulled the virtual display device out of her pocket and called up the screen in question. “Facial recognition technology.”
Comiston grew alarmed. “That’s the NSA’s network! Have the aliens infiltrated our secure networks?!”
She smiled a not-so-innocent smile at him. “Not to my knowledge. They seem to have tapped into several different satellite Internet providers. I hacked the security. The computers the Wakira have are so much faster than ours — what should have taken hours took only a few seconds.”
“You hacked in?”
She grimaced. “You don’t think that I can? That a quiet, soft-spoken girl like me can’t hack a secure system?” He started to say something, but refrained, leaving his mouth open. “I was 11 when I last hacked anything.” She paused for a moment. “Wait, I lied. I was actually 12. My fell
ow nerds were shunning me and I wanted to do something spectacular. So, I hacked into some sort of naval warfare research establishment. Saw something about using modified aircraft carriers to launch hypersonic manned bombers. Totally impractical.” His face now showed disappointment. “I never did it again, General. I only did it the one time to show off. I desperately wanted someone to be my friend. That’s all.” She stared off into the west.
“I’m sorry, Miss Hodges. I’m sorry if I came across as being judgmental. I have no doubts that your motives and objectives haven’t been malicious.” He sighed. “You’re right though. I never would have thought that a quiet, soft-spoken girl like you would’ve been a hacker.”
Her eyes never wavered from the western horizon. “I told you that I was a dangerous woman, General.” She tried to giggle but couldn’t.
Comiston shifted his gaze from her face to the west. “What are you looking at?”
“Those clouds. See how they’re growing?” They watched silently for a few seconds. “Wow! Those cloud tops are shooting up.”
“Mother, are we going to experience another storm?” the Wakira standing to her left asked.
“I’m not sure yet, male. But it certainly looks like it.” She started tapping the virtual keyboard. Seconds later, she had a satellite view of the area. “Geez. The storm system is massive.” A few more key taps and she had a composite radar image. “It stretches all the way down into Mexico. Has to be a cold front.” The screen refreshed. Subconsciously, she spotted something in the image but couldn’t figure out what it was.
“They’re still growing upwards and north northeastward,” the general commented.
Jennifer looked up for a moment then returned to the image on the virtual screen. It had refreshed again. She had it replay the last four images in a loop. “It’s a supercell,” she told them. Looking at the male, she said, “Yes. We will be experiencing a storm. And it looks like it will be significantly bigger than the one we had over a nineday ago.”
“Supercell?”
She looked at the general. “Tornado factory. Big temperature difference between the air masses. Extra humidity on the warm side — that’s us, in case you haven’t noticed. All it needs is wind shear.”
“How do you know so much about the weather, Miss Hodges?”
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a meteorologist. So, I taught myself.” She looked back at the screen and the new image. She caused the now five-image loop to run. The color left her face. “Hook,” was all she said.
“Hook?”
She pointed at the cloud mass that was growing bigger, darker and closer. “It’s an indicator of rotation. See the clouds? How they seem to be moving in a circle? We have rotation —. Oh crap, we’re screwed!”
“I don’t understand.”
She looked at him, incredulous. “Where are you from, General?”
He was taken aback by her annoyance. “Bellingham, Washington. Up against the Canadian border. Why?”
She took a deep breath then blew it out. “Don’t get many tornadoes up there, do you? The cell is rotating, and gaining strength. Pretty soon, it’ll start spawning twisters. Perhaps only a handful, perhaps dozens. And we’re right in their path.”
“We better blow the siren and get people to shelter.”
“Ya think?” she said, sarcastically. She then turned him around to the north. “Can you see the siren tower, General?”
“What tower?”
“The one on top of the community center and library. Where the town shelter is.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“The empty lot right across Twin Elm from the clinic. That’s where the tower is. Or was. Along with the shelter. It got damaged when the Hojo burnt down in 2010. They ended up having to demolish it in 2011. The hole behind the high school, in behind my back yard is where the new community center/shelter was supposed to have been completed in 2013. Instead we have this huge hole and hills of gravel and chunks of bedrock laying about everywhere.” She turned him back to face her. “There is no warning system, General. And there’s nowhere for the people of the town to ride out the storms.” She looked back towards the west. Instead of dark clouds and lightning, she saw death and destruction heading her way.
She looked at the male. He looked anxious, perhaps feeding off the fear he could sense from Jennifer. “Male, can this device be used for video communications?” She handed it to him.
“Yes Mother.”
“Connect me to the Mission Commander. It is urgent.”
He switched the display to his language and made several menu selections, then handed it back to her. Myka’s face appeared almost instantly.
“Beloved?”
“Myka? I need to ask a huge favor of you. Dangerous storms are approaching — they’ll be here in less than 30 minutes. Rotating winds can be as much as half the speed of sound. The people in this town have no shelters. They’ll be killed. Is there any way you can get the ship overhead to extend the barrier outwards?”
“There is a limit, Jennifer. It cannot cover the entire settlement. If it increases its altitude and moves slightly towards the — west? — the boundary will reach that street that your medical facility is on. That’s as much as it would be able to do.”
“It’ll do. If the army puts guards all along Thicket — the street next to the one my house is on — can the people living outside the barrier take refuge? The army would keep them from getting too close to the field and the survey ship. Please? I don’t know how many would die if you don’t.”
He didn’t even look upward to make his decision. “Yes. If we can keep them from wandering around, I would not object.”
“I thank you, Beloved. I owe you big time for this. End.”
She looked to her left at the Wakira and said “Males —,” then looked to her right at the soldiers and said, “—boys. You need to let everyone know that tornadoes are coming. Tell them to hurry to the barrier. Go!” As they ran off, she turned to the general. “What about your guys? What will you do?”
“I’ll send the MPs to the barrier for crowd control. As for the rest — we’ve been excavating under the rowhouses we commandeered. We’ve been building a bunker, just in case. It should be big enough for the rest of my men in town. There are bunkers for the men at the perimeter and those doing patrols. I better go give the orders.”
“Good luck, General. I hope to see you at lunch tomorrow.” As he left, she once again stared at the approaching storm. The appearance of groups of people hurrying along Main to Emerald brought her back to her senses. She raced back into the clinic, grabbed the two emergency-response backpacks filled with first-aid supplies, turned off the lights, and joined the rush to the barrier.
The skies in the west were black and there was frequent lightning visible just west of the town by the time Jennifer reached Emerald and Main. A line of MPs stood shoulder-to-shoulder across Emerald in between Thicket and Thorn. The townsfolk moved quickly part way down both Briar and Thicket. Their pace quickened substantially with the first blast of thunder. Wild wind gusts started blowing from the southwest, confirming, in Jennifer’s mind, that there was sufficient wind shear to trigger tornadoes.
Within moments, the flow of people slowed to a trickle, and the six Wakiran males who had gone out to give the warning returned. Then the driving rain hit; the sound of millions of raindrops hitting the asphalt simultaneously made hearing anyone speak difficult. Jennifer turned to a male standing beside her. “Have them activate the barrier,” she shouted in his ear.
“I obey, Chosen.” When the barrier appeared, many of the people ooo’d and ahhh’d. The noise from the storm dropped appreciably, only to be replaced by hundreds of voices talking all at once. Amid the cacophony of voices, Jennifer thought she heard a woman repeatedly asking a question that she couldn’t quite make out.
Down at the bottom of Emerald, three Wakiran males stood at their post. One of them spotted a young boy, partially hidden by the Rock, outside
the protection provided by the barrier. “There’s a pup!” he called out. “Alone. It is too dangerous for him to be out there, if this storm will be as bad as the Chosen has said. I will go get him.” Shoulders hunched, he stepped through the barrier and rushed to the boy. Heavy rain beat down on the both of them — rivulets of water running down their faces. “Come pup. It is not safe out here. Come with me.” He reached out his hand, and after a slight hesitation, the boy took it.
After they were pulled through the barrier, the male crouched to be at eye level with the young boy. “He can’t be much more than 8 — about 6 of their years,” he said to the others in his language. In English, he said to the boy “Do not be afraid, young pup. Are you supposed to be alone?”
The boy looked wide-eyed at the alien. “I was with my mommy. She said we had to come here because it was dangerous to be outside. There were so many people — I lost her. I tried to look for her. I can’t find her anywhere!”
“What is your name?”
“Ricky. Ricky Sanders. Can you help me find my mommy? Please! It’s dangerous outside!”
The male placed his hand on the boy’s back. “Yes. I will help you find your birth mother. She is probably at the top of the hill.” He took the boy’s hand again and stood. “Come, Ricky Sanders. We will find her.” He turned and told the other sentries to have someone notify the Chosen that they had found a boy.
As they started the trek up the steep hill, Ricky looked skyward at the underside of the ship that hovered above his head, as if he hadn’t even noticed it before. He stopped suddenly and asked, “Mister? When I grow up, will I get to fly in one of those ships?”
The sentry’s heart broke. What answer could he give the pup that was honorable? Finally, he said, “I truly hope so, Ricky Sanders. I will pray tonight.”
The sound of the woman’s voice seemed to be getting frantic. The male beside Jennifer whispered something directly into her ear. “Jill?! Jill Sanders?!” Jennifer called out. Though she could still faintly hear the frantic voice, it was apparent that the multiple conversations were drowning out Jennifer’s shouts. Finally, an ear-piercing whistle was heard, and everyone grew quiet. “Jill Sanders! Have you misplaced your son?!”
And What of Earth? Page 18