Unrest

by Wendy Higgins

  “We were at the gym,” Remy said with a laugh.

  His arms tightened. “This place gives me the creeps. I have a feeling it’s not homo friendly.”

  “Nobody’s gonna mess with you,” Tex said with absolute authority.

  J.D. gave him a bashful, grateful smile. “Okay.”

  Josh laughed. “These bastards will be glad you’re not more dudes they have to compete with for the handful of females.”

  J.D. snorted, but he seemed to loosen up a tiny bit.

  “I’ll get you guys something to eat,” Remy said. When she opened the door, Top came in.

  “You should all go, except Miss Tate.” He looked at me. “I’ll need you to take their vitals after they’ve been questioned.”

  J.D. blanched and reached for Sean’s hand.

  “It’s all right,” Sean assured him.

  We filed from the room. I turned toward the exam room and felt fingers take hold of mine. I spun to Rylen, who held my hand.

  He gave me a small smile. “This is good, right?”

  Him holding my hand? My mouth bobbed open and closed.

  “Them making it here?” he clarified.

  “Oh, yes. It’s awesome.”

  He squeezed my hand before releasing me and heading down the hall. I stared at his tapered waist. The tribal tattoos that spiked down the backs of his arms. His perfectly toned calves under the nylon shorts. Why did he have to be so hot? And confusing?

  I went into the exam room, but didn’t have to wait long for J.D. to enter. They’d already partially debriefed him before Top came to get us. J.D.’s vitals were all normal, but he was underweight and still cold.

  “Did Remy feed you?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “No problem. Few days of food and some warm showers and you’ll be feeling more like yourself. They’ll want to find a job for you. What did you do before?”

  “Modeling. Some commercials.”

  Oh. Well, crap.

  “And I was a hairdresser.”

  My eyes lit up. “They totally need someone here to give cuts. There’s a barber set that gets passed around, but half the guys have butchered hair when they try to do it themselves, so they end up shaving it short. It wouldn’t be glamorous work, but it would be helpful.”

  “Sure. I’ll do whatever.” He swallowed hard. “I asked them if Thomas had shown up here, but he hasn’t. I don’t know where he could be. He’s smart. Very capable. Not gullible like me; he’s the one who knew there was a problem with the DRI. He saved us.”

  He was still trying to talk himself into believing Thomas was safe somewhere, but I knew better. I was certain J.D. would also come to that conclusion in his own time.

  “It’s not safe out there for anyone,” I said. “I’m so sorry, J.D. I can’t imagine how awful it is not to know.”

  He closed his eyes. “Sometimes I can’t handle it. I close my eyes and pretend I’m home reading Riley Hart and sipping a Manhattan. And then Sean comes along and makes me insane, trying to keep it real and toughen me up. He’s a bear, you know.”

  I smiled. “He comes across very kind and gentle to me. And cute.”

  J.D. opened his eyes just to roll them at me. “I’d never date a ginger. Too bossy. Even one who’s sort of auburn-ish, not that orangey-red.”

  “These are strange times,” I told him. “Never say never.”

  Weeks passed in a blur of work, gym, eating just enough to sustain us, and sleeping. An unspoken tension settled over everyone in the New Year. We had no idea what the DRI were up to, that I knew of, and the waiting stirred up a sense of unrest. I was antsy with the slowness of my job and being stuck underground, so I volunteered to help with other things.

  “You’re welcome to help with cleaning,” Top told me after dinner one night. I must have glared because he chuckled. “What did you have in mind, Miss Tate?”

  I craved fresh air and sunlight, but I knew sunshine was out of the question. “Maybe I could help on night watch? Up in the tower with Sergeant Mahalchick?”

  “It’s freezing aboveground, you know.”

  Oh, yeah. Freaking winter. Remy said it was evil out there. She got to be in the outdoors for the two seconds it took to run from the bunker doors to the greenhouse during her shifts. It was funny to see her dressed in all black with her hair shoved in a black beanie like a bank robber or something.

  I shrugged like it wouldn’t bother me. Like I was Elsa.

  He chewed the inside of his lip and exhaled. “Even the watchers have to be armed and ready to defend, if necessary.”

  “I know how to shoot, sir. I work well under pressure. Ask my brother.”

  He thought a moment longer. “I’ll see if I can work you into a rotation for training, but you’ll still need to be on call for med emergencies.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Thank you!” Day. Made.

  Four days later I was bundled up so well I was sweating as I followed Mark to the meeting point at the bunker entrance we originally came in. It was ten at night. The biggest, heaviest gun I’d ever held was slung over my shoulder. I’d spent the last three days learning how to use it. Mark and I met in the hall with two other guys in winter gear who nodded at us, and didn’t seem surprised by my presence. I followed them up the concrete steps at the end of the hall with Mark behind me, and I felt nervous when the door sentry lifted open the hatch to the outdoors.

  A crunching sound came as the guys marched out. Ice had formed in places where snow had been trampled down and refrozen. I paused as I stared out at the white blanket covering everything. It appeared serene and peaceful. Mark gave me a gentle nudge from behind and I moved forward. The effort it took to lift my legs with each step reminded me of our trek to the base, and I was glad we didn’t have to go far.

  I followed them to the watch tower where we climbed the stairs. My face was cold, but the rest of me stayed warm. The watch tower was dark and old, slightly creaky. I marveled when I faced the long window and saw everything. The hotel outside of the base, which appeared completely dark and deserted, the greenhouse inside the base, the never-ending acres of solar panels, the nearby bumps where “rocks” sat with soldiers hiding within—all softened by layers of snow. The moon and starlight shone off the surface like white glass that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  I wanted to say something about how pretty it was, but the others seemed used to it, so I admired in silence. They showed me the ropes: the walkie-talkies, the button to push to send an alert to Top, and the major alert button that would sound an alarm to the entire bunker. And then we each took a side of the square room and stationed ourselves to look out with binoculars. It took all my self-control not to stare up at the sky, which I hadn’t seen in so long. I missed it. Instead, I kept a steady watch on the horizon where the dark sky met the land. After ten minutes I was thoroughly bored, which shamed me because it was an important job. It was only the fear that DRI could come into sight at any moment that kept my eyes focused.

  And focused.

  And still focused.

  After four hours I started to shiver a little. There was no heat in the tower.

  “Amber, right?” said one of the guys.

  I blinked and swung my head, but he was staring intently out his window through his binoculars, so I turned back to my own and refocused. “Yeah?”

  “Got your eye on any of the guys here?”

  Mark snorted and my face flushed with heat. Actually, I’d met most everyone in the bunker by now, and several soldiers had tried to hit on me, but obviously I wasn’t having that.

  “Noneya,” I said, making all three of them laugh.

  And now that the silence had been broken, an easy banter began, with each of us intently watching our zones. It helped pass the time and settle my jitters. Being out here was cool, but it was impossible not to feel exposed and vulnerable. Just the thought of a fighter jet whizzing over that horizon toward us gave me the chills.

  “How about your fr
iend, Remy?” the other guy asked.

  “She’s sort of taking a break from everything,” I told him.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I really didn’t want to talk about it. After the grief counseling sessions I’d attended, I avoided talking serious at any cost.

  “She lost her parents on Christmas, and . . . you know. She needs time. Next subject.”

  “Damn,” he whispered. “Sucks.”

  That killed the convo for a while. Finally we saw movement at the bunker entrance; the next shift of watchers were coming out. I breathed a sigh of relief, but kept my eyes on the horizon until the next group entered the room to relieve us.

  I gulped down as much fresh, cold air as I could and watched the stars as I tramped through the crunching snow, back into the depths of our safe haven.

  The four of us watchers came out of the long hall into the common room, all of us stripping off the top layers of our uniforms. We were laughing about something when a far door opened—the door where secret things happened and nobody was allowed to enter—and my stomach flipped at the sight of Rylen and Linette walking out together, heads close in conversation.

  What were they doing at four in the morning? I thought Rylen only worked the day shift. Seeing as we were the only people in the room, they stopped and saw us right away. Linette wore a nice expression until her eyes landed on me and hardened.

  Back at ya.

  When Ry saw me he completely froze, and his face went through the strangest series of emotions: surprise, fear, nervousness, and then he seemed to shake from his reverie and plaster a stoic look in the place of the dire ones. Seriously, what had they been doing? I was shaking and it had nothing to do with the cold clinging to me.

  The guys greeted Rylen and Linette, then headed toward the tunnel. Linette gave Rylen a good-bye nod and seemed to communicate something heavy through her eyes. He inclined his head in return, and she left us, not looking at me again.

  Rylen’s jaw rocked side-to-side as he waited for Linette to be gone. Then he looked at me and I felt myself rock back on my heels from the heaviness of his gaze.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the fear from my voice.

  He swallowed. His mouth didn’t open to speak. He blinked and peered around as if trying to make sense of his surroundings. I stepped toward him.

  “Rylen, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me. Is it . . . is it Linette?”

  “No.” His voice sounded dry, and I watched as he swallowed again. “Just work stuff.” Then it hit me.

  “They told you things, didn’t they? Intel?”

  When he stared at me without responding, I knew I was right. His freaked out expression made me feel woozy.

  “What is it? Tell me.”

  “I can’t,” he whispered. And suddenly he moved forward and I was in his arms, and he was hugging me so solidly I could barely breathe. I had never seen Rylen this freaked out. It scared me.

  “Tonight.” Even that single word sounded like he struggled to get it out.

  “You’ll tell me tonight?”

  Rylen pulled back, ran a hand over his hair. “Everyone who doesn’t know will learn tonight.” I wanted to push for more, but something held me back. Perhaps the fact that he was too out of sorts to talk, or that I was terrified to hear whatever had shaken him this hard. For whatever reason, I didn’t question him further. I just led us to the tunnel, turned on my flashlight, and got us to our rooms. He waited for me to get inside mine before going in his.

  Remy snored lightly and snuggled up to me, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I could only toss and turn as my blood buzzed with fear of the unknown.

  Rylen came to get me from the med room at the end of my half-day evening shift. He said nothing, and our steps were heavy as he led me to the forbidden door. Our group of eleven stood there waiting, along with about twenty others. The quiet tension as we waited for First Sergeant to get us was unnerving. Remy stood so close, our arms were fused. I think we all knew that whatever news we were about to learn would change us forever.

  “Here comes Dog Balls,” Tater said in a hushed tone.

  We turned to face Top as he approached from the tunnel with Linette and Puppy Nuts by his side. He said nothing as he opened the door and ushered us in, down a narrow hall.

  We filed into a large room that reminded me of a college classroom: rows of long, thin tables with a screen at the front of the room. I sat with Remy on one side and Rylen on the other. Once everyone was seated, First Sergeant came to the front. Puppy Nuts and Linette stood to the side. She leaned against a desk with her arms crossed.

  First Sergeant cleared his throat and began. “Thank you all for your patience. I know you’ve all been curious about what we’re facing, and I wanted to gather as much information as possible before we debriefed the entire staff. We now know as much as we possibly can, and I don’t want to hold off another day on educating you about what we’re up against.

  “This war did not begin on Thanksgiving. Plans for the attacks on Thanksgiving began over a hundred years ago.” The hairs on my arms stood at attention as a chill swept over me. A hundred years? He began to pace back and forth as he spoke, his hands behind his back.

  “Though our communications with worldwide entities has been sparse the past six weeks, what we’d gathered is that the situation is the same across the globe. Every major country’s government and military were infiltrated. And while we’ve been studying this enemy for over one hundred years now, we were unaware of their power and outreach. Their numbers. They blended in and eluded us.” He paused. “We severely underestimated them, and we failed.”

  Texas Harry shook his head and asked, “Who, sir?” Who are they?”

  First Sergeant seemed to steel himself, and it looked like he’d begun to sweat at his hairline. “They’re called the Baelese. From a place called Bael.”

  My mind scoured through old geography lessons, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Sir,” said New York Josh. “There’s no country by that name.”

  “It’s not a country.” Top appeared pale now, and even Linette shifted uncomfortably as he said the next words. “It’s a planet.”

  Murmurs, even laughter, rose up in the room.

  Remy whispered, “What? That’s not funny.”

  I looked at Rylen. He remained very still, his eyes deadly serious. My heart gave a resounding pound that turned into a whomping in my head.

  “Aliens, sir?” Texas Harry said with half amusement.

  First Sergeant did not crack a smile. He just stared Texas Harry down, as if daring him to take it as a joke.

  “Wait,” said Tater. “You’re fucking serious? Excuse my language, sir, but you’re for real?”

  “This is not a laughing matter.” His face was so grave. As were the faces of Puppy Nuts and Linette. “You’d all do well to adjust your minds as quickly as possible to this new reality. The Baelese race has wiped out nearly the entire human population, and they plan to use the remaining humans as slaves.”

  “What the fuck?” J.D. let out a high-pitched whisper behind me, and I turned to see Sean moved closer to him, though his own face had gone pale enough to hide his freckles.

  I looked at Remy with a hand pressed over her mouth and she began to shake violently as her eyes slid to mine.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered stupidly. Of course it wasn’t okay. But the assuredness of my voice made her nod, like she was clinging to the mantra. It’s okay, it’s okay . . .

  Tater looked past her to me, and our eyes locked in a moment of mutual holy-shitness. He rubbed a hand roughly down his face. Whispered curses of disbelief rose up like a morbid chorus around us, echoing in my still-whomping ears.

  Oh, my God. I grabbed the side edges of my seat and tried to control my breathing. This had to be a nightmare. I glanced at Rylen again and when he looked back I remembered the haunting he’d experienced last night, how shaken he’d been. And I knew from the steady look in his eyes th
at this was all true. Every unbelievable word.

  “There has to be a mistake, right?” Remy whispered. The mantra must have stopped working, because her breaths were loud now, like she might hyperventilate. I took her hand and we squeezed hard.

  “Sir, how do we know this?” asked a man in the back.

  “Let me tell you all we’ve learned, and then I’ll explain how we learned it.”

  Top gave Linette a nod and she typed something into a computer next to her. The screen lit up with a map of the universe.

  “Bael,” he explained, “is the equivalent of Earth in a bordering galaxy, but much smaller.” He pointed to a tiny cluster of light. “The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, like ours, has one sun, but their galaxy is ancient in comparison to ours. Their sun is in the process of expanding from a yellow dwarf to a red giant, meaning rising temperatures that will make their planet uninhabitable. It will eventually engulf their planet’s orbit, and so they seek a new home.”

  The entire room gaped, frozen, with rapt attention as each horrifying word was spoken.

  “The Baelese are exceedingly intelligent creatures, and Bael is much like Earth in its temperatures and air properties. Their symbiotic relationship between plant and animal mirrors ours, taking in oxygen, giving off carbon dioxide, and vice versa. Their race is highly evolved, having been around millennias longer than ours. We’ve learned that, in their known history, they suffered a meteor shower that wiped out most of their population. The way they came back from it was to unite all survivors under one government, learning one language, which eventually led to one race. We believe that is their plan for Earth.”

  I felt like a giant had reached inside me and was crushing my intestines and lungs with a tight fist. Top’s words were scientific. Logical. And yet my mind severely rebelled against it. Not a single person spoke or moved.

  “The superior technologies and communications of Bael are unprecedented. They were able to track and find the nearest planet compatible to their beings, and scout us long before we’d invented motor vehicles or begun probing the first layers of our atmosphere. They left their planet in stages, dying and reproducing en route. They abducted a handful of humans in order to study our ways as they continued to orbit our planet and plan. One quarter of their population arrived here on Earth over a hundred years ago in a series of four landings. We believe another batch arrived in rural Nevada shortly before Thanksgiving.”