Tap-Dancing the Minefields

by Lyn Gala

  “You fucked up once. It happens,” John said.

  “I forgot to bring a weapon. That’s less mistake-like and more on the monumentally moronic side. See how I used alliteration to emphasize the moron part of the sentence? Feel free to interrupt me anytime now.” Tank sagged in his seat.

  “If I interrupted you, you’d use any compliment as an excuse to keep insulting yourself.”

  “What? No, I wouldn’t.”

  John raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t,” Tank repeated. He stopped as his brain did a fast-forward through his last few conversations with Colonel Aldrich. “I don’t mean….” The truth hit Tank like a slimy fish. A slimy fish that smelled like rot. “Well, shit,” he sighed. “You know, the only thing ruder than refusing to interrupt my self-hate is rearranging people’s brains without their permission. I don’t mean to tear myself down. It’s just that sometimes I feel so helpless.”

  “Everyone does.”

  Tank snorted. “You and Marie have the superstrength—and you might not have realized it yet, but Zhu is terrifying. If you hooked his brain up to the electrical grid, you’d solve the energy crisis.”

  “What energy crisis?”

  Tank opened his mouth, but he couldn’t actually come up with an answer. “I don’t know. My mother always says stuff like that. But face it, I don’t bring much to the table.” Tank hated how saying that aloud made him feel his own patheticness even more sharply.

  “Everyone feels that way. I do most days. On the ship I always felt helpless, but I didn’t give up. If I had, I’d still be up there. When you feel the most powerless, do you think of yourself as inferior or untrained?”

  Tank considered for a moment before answering. “Both. Hugely both.”

  “I can teach you. When I’m done, you’ll be able to fight a modified human. Lots of regular humans on the ships could take out mods who got arrogant and didn’t train. But if you don’t believe in yourself, the training won’t work. You have to walk into a place both knowing that you have a damn good chance of coming out alive, and believing that if you die or get captured, it’s not your fault. It means the other guy had more luck.”

  “I’m pretty sure I lived this long by staying close to people who had actual skills, so believing I have skills is a little outside the realm of probability.”

  “Nah. Stand too close to a fighter and you’re more likely to end up dead, not less. Zhu and Marie brought the alien experiments closer to you, and you lived. That’s why I brought you.” John looked at the building. “I’m going to go in there and see if I can’t poke the aliens. I figure you’re a creative thinker, so I trust you to stay in the car and drive the getaway. If you see something, take advantage of it. If Marie comes out, grab her and circle the area until Clyde and the others come. If I’m running, hit whoever’s chasing me with the car.”

  “And what are you going to be doing?”

  John grinned. “Annoying them. Setting off internal sensors, pulling fire alarms, doing whatever will make them run around in confused circles.”

  “What? As far as strategy goes, that feels less like a plan and more like something a stupid teenager would do.”

  “That’s just it.” John’s grin grew almost maniacal. “When Clyde comes in with weapons the IF has reverse engineered from the aliens, that’s going to threaten them. They’re going to close up shop and head for home. But a bunch of stupid pranks is going to confuse them.”

  “And what’s the point in that?”

  John pursed his lips. “If I were a prisoner in there, I’d be waiting for my chance—any small crack in security that would let me use my genetic advantage to break out.”

  Tank realized what John was saying. He’d wondered how John was planning to find Marie, but he’d assumed there was some sort of superhuman sniffing or tracking or something. Instead John actually had no intention of searching for Marie. “You’re assuming Marie can rescue herself.”

  Some of the energy drained from John, and he seemed to lose a little of his confidence. “I’m not assuming anything. They might have her locked down so hard she doesn’t have a chance, and she might be dead. But she deserves a chance, so if there’s any possibility she’s alive and still fighting, isn’t it our obligation to give her that?”

  Tank thought they were obligated to save her, but he had no idea where to even start on that. This might be a long shot, but it was better than doing nothing. “You’re risking everything for someone you don’t know.”

  John shook his head. “I’m risking everything for a human being who deserves a chance. Clyde and Lev took a chance trusting me when I could have been one of those who told the guards everything that was going on. I owe the universe a debt for my freedom. Wait here and watch.”

  “No!” Tank said. “Give me your phone.”

  “What?”

  “Phone. You want to annoy them, right?”

  “Yeah.” John handed over his phone, but he sounded hesitant.

  “Then you have found my one superpower. Annoyance is the only skill I ever mastered on the first go-round. So give me your phone, watch, and learn. We need to start with a little intel on the neighborhood, then some recon in the building’s lobby. We tell them we’re looking for some office nearby so we don’t look suspicious when we try to find names and office numbers in there.” Tank poked his thumb toward the building in front of them before he went back to searching the local maps. “And actually, you couldn’t look helpless if you took a month to practice. I’ll go in and video everything I can. Then the annoyance begins.”

  “Meaning?”

  “This is New York. We have delivery on demand, twenty-four hours a day. We start calling restaurants—as many as we can find in the area—and we flood that security guard with angry delivery guys. Then when he’s pinned down, and he’s called other security down to the lobby to deal with the mess, you can do your thing.”

  Tank and Roger had done this to the high school, using teacher names to call in pizza deliveries from a dozen places. The restaurants sometimes called back or looked up an address, but if the information matched, four times out of five, they’d send the delivery even if they couldn’t get ahold of someone to confirm. Since the school didn’t allow phone calls to go through to teacher classrooms during school hours, the pizza places couldn’t check, but the fact that the teacher name, school name, and room number matched was enough. The school had been flooded with pizza and angry pizza delivery guys who had all cursed at the principals in a New York rainbow of languages. And a lot of places had stopped taking orders from Roger’s and Tank’s phone numbers.

  Roger had thought it was bullshit that he got suspended for five days and Tank only got one day of in-school suspension, but Tank hadn’t done as many shitty things to teachers before that day. Who knew that their delinquency was going to prove so useful?

  “That’ll improve the odds,” John said. “A few actual fires would make for more chaos.”

  “I could wait until several delivery people show up and then call 9-1-1 with a report of a fight in the lobby,” Tank said as he imagined the scene. Delivery people were not subtle about their unhappiness when they thought some doorman or guard was getting between them and their tip. It would probably be pretty loud, so the police would have trouble sorting it out.

  John laid his hand on Tank’s shoulder. “Don’t get caught outside the car. Your job is to drive. Whoever gets out of that building, me or Marie, you have to be here to get us clear.”

  Tank nodded. “Got it. I’ll do the recon and see if they have a building directory or if I can video the papers behind the security desk, and then I’ll stay here and wait for you guys. But John, don’t get caught. I don’t want to be ground zero for losing another good person to this fight. I’ve lost too many.”

  For a long time, John studied Tank. The silence welled up until Tank shifted uncomfortably, but finally John said in a serious voice, “We all have.”

  Tank thought about what it must be like to gr
ow up on a slave ship knowing that he was going to have to fight for his life and kill others. Suddenly Tank’s childhood looked far more functional. But he and John were still fighting back, and that was all that mattered.

  Well, that and winning. Right now Tank really wanted to win just one more battle against these alien assholes.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  TANK TAPPED his fingers against the steering wheel and fought down the herd of buffalo that had taken to stampeding through his stomach every five seconds. A police car sat at the curb, its lights flashing. One delivery car and three bikes were adding to the general chaos outside, so Tank could only imagine the bedlam inside.

  In all the years Tank had been annoying people semiprofessionally, he’d never thought it would actually prove useful.

  His phone vibrated, and Tank checked it expecting another confirmation text from one of the restaurants he’d ordered from, but it was Lev.

  On the way. All quiet?

  Tank could hear the worry even through a text.

  Quiet & waiting.

  After he sent the text, he wondered if he should explain that John had gone inside. Tank still had trouble believing that John was risking not only death but enslavement to save someone he barely knew. Yeah, Tank understood it was the morally correct choice, but in practical terms Tank’s life had been about saving his friends. After that came preventing his classmates from being turned into collateral damage. The rest of New York were on their own.

  Maybe it was because he saw himself as a kid and all the adults in the world should protect him, not the other way around. But he wasn’t a kid anymore.

  That’s what John and Colonel Aldrich had been trying to say the whole time.

  Tank tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel as he wondered how long it would take Aldrich to get there. Suddenly a white light flashed, blinding Tank. Sometimes alien flashes left a victim blind for minutes, sometimes for hours. Recognizing the attack, Tank reached for his weapon—but strong fingers wrapped around his wrist, pressing so hard that Tank could feel the bones grind together and his fingers went numb.

  “Fuck you!” Tank swore as he tried to swing on the creature in the car with him, but punching with his left hand across his own body was ineffective at best. When the shadows resolved themselves into actual sight again, Tank found Mr. Chow sitting next to him, holding Tank’s wrist hostage.

  The flash attack was a classic demon move, so Tank wasn’t exactly surprised, but seeing the depths to which he was screwed made something in his stomach curl up and die.

  “Let me go.” Tank jerked on his hand, but he didn’t expect to earn his freedom. So when Mr. Chow did let go, Tank slammed his elbow against the gear knob. Since attacking would be suicidal, Tank went for retreat. He grabbed the car door, but the handle wouldn’t move no matter how hard Tank pulled.

  “Do not,” Mr. Chow said.

  The sound of his voice sent new waves of fear through Tank, but he forced his body into stillness and tried to slow his thoughts. He didn’t have a weapon he could pull before Chow blinded or subdued him again, and he couldn’t escape. What did that leave him?

  “What do you want?” Tank meant the question as a stalling tactic as much as anything else.

  For a long time, they sat in silence, staring at each other. Considering the alternatives were death and enslavement, Tank considered a standoff a win for his column, but he didn’t understand why Chow was waiting. Then again, Aldrich and Lev agreed that no one really understood alien motivations. Then Tank realized he had one hand he could play. If a potential war with the aliens was the end game, humans needed information, and Tank was positioned to get it, even if he didn’t live long enough to deliver it.

  Tank shifted around in his seat, using his squirming to hide the motion of slipping his phone out of his pocket. Tank thumbed on the video recorder and then let the phone slip from his fingers. It went under the driver’s seat. Hopefully someone would find it later, even if Tank was dead or gone.

  “We can stare at each other, or you can tell me why you’re in this car,” Tank said.

  Another long silence followed, but finally Chow said, “Do you know who I am?”

  “I know who you look like.” Chow looked like Zhu’s father. He was a square-jawed man with white hair along the sides of his head and salt-and-pepper gray on top. He was handsome and distinguished, and if someone took a picture of Zhu and time-progressed it about forty years, Mr. Chow would be the result. But then, he’d had the advantage of building his avatar to look like anyone he wanted. “But this isn’t really you. You’re just driving the body.”

  Tank waited for the denial. He waited to see if Chow would keep playing the demon card. Instead the avatar just watched with something that appeared to be curiosity.

  “What are we doing here?” Tank asked. If he wanted to give the alien psychology people something to work with, he needed Chow to talk.

  “Sitting,” Chow answered quickly.

  “Yeah. I get that. Why are we sitting here? Are you waiting for someone? Maybe you’re going to give me to one of those slave-ship aliens?” Tank could feel the acid press against the base of his throat as he even considered the possibility. Lev and Aldrich had survived six months. Tank didn’t give himself good odds on doing the same, and he didn’t know the technology well enough to even attempt an escape on his own.

  Mr. Chow went utterly still. Tank used to think that was a demon thing, but now he wondered if the avatar wasn’t waiting for commands. Maybe he had shocked the alien enough that he needed time to respond. Eventually Chow said, “I am not associated with those individuals.”

  “You know, that’s a little hard to believe. You modify humans and then screw with them to see how they react. The ship modifies humans to see how they fight. I don’t see a difference.”

  “No one has modified a human as I have Zhu.”

  Tank wondered if the scientist behind the avatar was proud of that or just stating a fact. “And did you modify Marie? Are you her father too, the same asshole behind two different avatars?”

  “No.”

  Tank waited for some explanation or excuse. None came. Maybe the alien on the other end was distracted—Tank felt like he was doing most of the talking. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Immaterial.”

  “You created both, and when we destroyed one avatar, you decided to switch from experimenting on one human to fucking with the other. It makes sense.”

  Chow blinked slowly. “The other researcher has left.”

  “And you’re here.” Tank thought about that recorder under his seat and took a deep breath. His voice was edging up into the shrill range, and Tank didn’t want Lev hearing this and knowing that Tank’s last minutes or hours had been full of fear. The only gifts Tank could give him were information and the assurance that Tank was choosing to go out on his own terms, so he tried to put that into his voice. He tried to find the confidence he could hear when Aldrich spoke, or when John did. He tried to forget the feeling of Lev’s arms wrapped around him as he cried. That part of his life was his past, and Tank needed to be in the present. “What game is this?” Tank felt a flush of pride at the steadiness in his voice.

  “Where is the military leader?”

  “I don’t know who you mean.”

  Chow raised his eyebrows. “When will he arrive?”

  “You know, bite me. I don’t feel any need to help you.” Tank gave Chow his most sarcastic smile—the one that always made teachers and drill sergeants grit their teeth. Typically Tank paid for that insubordination later, but he figured he couldn’t make things worse, so what the hell.

  “Who is inside the building?”

  “And again, bite me,” Tank suggested.

  Chow suffered another of those frozen moments, and Tank eased his hand toward the knife in his belt. He hadn’t gotten halfway there before Chow’s head moved, his gaze going straight to Tank’s hand. “You are interesting. What I believed to be anomalous data
may fit within my hypothesis.”

  “I’m not complimented.” If anything, Tank was a little freaked out. Scientists did unpleasant things to interesting specimens.

  “It was an observation, not a compliment.”

  Tank moved his arms away from his sides, showing his empty hands. “You’re running the show, so what do you want?”

  “Information.”

  “I don’t plan to give you any, so what’s the next step after I tell you to go fuck yourself? Because I’m not into waiting. So whatever you have planned, I’d rather get it over with now.”

  “When does your military team arrive?” Chow seemed to keep coming back to that point. Tank got the unpleasant feeling that Chow wanted the military here. If Tank could, he would argue that was the best reason for Aldrich to steer clear. However, he doubted Chow would give him an opportunity to make his case to the colonel.

  “Who said they’re coming? I’ve been trying to kill you fuckers since long before I met the military,” Tank said with a smile.

  “If you are acting without sanction, that would imply Zhu is inside.” Chow looked up at the building.

  “And we’re back to me not giving you any information.”

  “I do not require you to gain information.”

  “Well, then, feel free to leave and gain information somewhere else.” Tank gestured toward the door. Chow’s hand darted out and captured Tank’s wrist again. “Let go.” Tank jerked, but he couldn’t break Mr. Chow’s grip.

  When Chow pulled out a can-opener looking thing, Tank had had enough. He contorted his body around so his back was to the locked door and started kicking Chow as hard as he could. Over and over he kicked Chow in the face, cursing each time, but Chow ignored all Tank’s antics, running the alien device over Tank’s inside forearm.

  “Let go, you freak! You fucking asshole! Whatever hell your people believe in, I hope you go there and rot forever, you stinking maggot.” Tank kicked with all his force, but Chow finished scraping the flat edge across Tank’s forearm and put the device back in his pocket before using his now-free hand to capture Tank’s ankle as well. Now Chow held both Tank’s right wrist and left ankle. Tank breathed heavily and got a death grip on the steering wheel with his left hand. “I feel sorry for Zhu, having a sadistic bastard like you in his life.”