by Jeff Abugov
“The President does things the way he does them.”
“He doesn’t trust me? Then I should resign. If I’m not entrusted to do my –”
“Stop it, Captain. You’re not going to resign. But there is something you should know. I was assigned to the great man as a fresh-faced lieutenant straight out of West Point. He was just a major then, and I’ve been directly under his command ever since. He trusts me more than he trusts anyone. It’s why he chose me as his second-in-command ahead of a long line of generals who by all rights should be here in my place. And do you know what today’s briefing is about?”
“No, sir. Not really.”
“Me neither. So stop taking it personally!”
Plato had little interest in their words. As their conversation continued, he hissed softly, sprouted his fangs, then inched toward the Captain’s neck-vein when suddenly, from across the room, Julius thrust out his open palm as if striking someone in the forehead! Plato’s head snapped back as if he had just been struck.
“Keep an open eye, Prague,” Julius cautioned his trusted secondary. “This truce must not be broken. Our survival depends on it.” Then he belted indignantly across the large space, “Plato!”
Julius was on the other side of the lobby in an instant, towering over the vampire who looked shamefully down at the exquisite marble floor, awaiting the scolding he knew was to come.
“What did I tell you?” Julius admonished. “What did I tell you?!”
“But I was hungry.”
“The humans have provided us with plenty of other mammals with which we may eat our fill.”
“But I don’t like eating other mammals.”
“Then you shall remain hungry. Understood?”
Plato looked to the marble floor once again and silently nodded his consent.
“I said, ‘understood’?!”
“Yes, Julius,” the little vampire answered meekly. “I understand.”
*****
Laurel and Denison saw the drama from the podium, and they knew it was grave cause for concern. Even if Julius was on the level—and that was still a big “if”—would he be able to control the colonies if they didn’t share his long-term view?
“This alliance does not feel right to me, ma’am,” Denison told her. “Not by a long shot. Are you sure it’s a good idea?”
“Not by a long shot,” she replied. “But I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”
*****
“Heya rookies,” Johnny said pleasantly as he approached Prague and Africa. “Welcome to my army.”
“Your army?” asked an amused Africa.
“Well, technically, it’s the President’s army. I’m more like the morale leader. And you ladies are creating quite the dilemma for me.”
“Is that so,” responded a thoroughly unimpressed Prague.
Johnny smiled as he continued to engage the women, unaware that Harve, now showered and shaved and seated in one of the folding chairs, was watching every move the pilot made, writing his findings in a small notepad.
Why is he talking to the vampires? What does he know? What is he trying to know? This isn’t proof of anything yet, the new Lieutenant reminded himself, they’re just questions. But it was becoming apparent that the more he examined Johnny, the more questions he seemed to have about him.
“And what is the nature of your dilemma?” Africa lightheartedly asked the oblivious suspect.
“Well, it’s like this,” Johnny affably began. “I’m basically a one-woman-guy. And you’re both so—oh, what’s the word? ‘Radiant.’ You’re both so radiant that I don’t know which one of you I should make a move on.”
“You fancy yourself some kind of badass, do you?” Prague asked coldly.
“Well . . .” Johnny replied with comically glaring false modesty.
“Caesar was a badass,” snapped the blonde vampire. “Mao was a badass. You are but a little human hustler who’d be dead-dead-dead if he tried this monkeyshine on any other day than today. Am I clear?”
“Crystal clear,” Johnny answered then turned to Africa. “You’re the one I should make a move on.”
Africa giggled.
“Don’t encourage him,” Prague cautioned.
“Soldiers! Take your seats!” Colonel Williams barked from the podium.
“Catch you ladies later,” Johnny told the vampires, then leaned toward Africa and whispered in her ear. “And try to ditch your nasty friend.”
Johnny moved off, and the girls headed to their chairs behind the podium.
“It eludes me why you must encourage them so, Africa,” said Prague.
“You’re just jealous.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“Then my attempt to make you jealous has resulted in a dismal failure,” Africa said as she smiled mischievously, and Prague didn’t like it one bit. “But fear not, my love. I could never be truly interested in a boy like that,” Africa assured her mentor as they watched Johnny take the open seat next to Harve.
“I know you couldn’t, my gem.”
“I much prefer his manly friend.”
Prague merely groaned, which caused Africa to giggle once more.
*****
“Well look at you, dude!” Johnny shouted as he noticed the gold bars on the former Sergeant’s shoulders. “Lieutenant! Way to go! Way to be!”
“Thank you,” Harve replied, cold and poker faced.
“So, details, man. How’d it happen?”
“They put me in charge of finding the alien mole,” the new Lieutenant answered as he began his fishing expedition. “You know anything about that?”
“Um, I guess. Same as you.”
“Oh yeah? What do I know?”
“What do you know? Um, God is good?”
“I’m going to have to question you.”
“My life is an open book—except for the parts that I won’t tell you.”
“Officers,” announced Colonel Williams from the podium. “Your Commander in Chief, the President of the United States.”
All snapped to attention as Peyton entered. Colonel Williams moved to the open seat behind the podium among Laurel, Denison, Julius, Prague and Africa.
“Be seated, officers,” Peyton said as he took center stage then stoically waited for his order to be carried out.
“As you all know, there is a spy among us. So I will be purposely vague with you as we discuss our next move, and you are ordered to be even more vague when you pass this information onto your squads.
“Behind me sit the ranking officers of what we’re calling ‘V-Company.’ They will report directly to Major Denison, who will in turn report to the former First Lady and myself.
“The members of V-Company have a very unique ability that you will only discover once on the battlefield. I cannot emphasize enough just how unique but, well, pretty darn unique. When their abilities become known, it will cause panic and confusion among the enemy. It must not cause panic and confusion among us. You and your soldiers are expected to be ready to witness the impossible, accept it, and roll with it. Even though it will most assuredly blow your minds.
“Many of you, upon seeing what you will see, will still not comprehend it. This is fine—you only need to fight and kill, not understand. But for those who do recognize what stands before you, you are not permitted to utter a word of it aloud. Remember, the man on your right may be the enemy spy, so let’s let the damn bugs figure it out on their own.” (Coincidentally, Johnny was seated to Harve’s right.)
“Now on to the fun part. Tactics.”
Johnny couldn’t help notice that Harve was quietly shaking his head in his personal contempt for the plan. “You know what they are, don’t you?” Johnny asked.
Harve said nothing, but his face was scowled with distaste, his eyes locked with Africa’s.
“Come on, man. What are they?”
He had no intention of telling his prime suspect what he had just been ordered not to tell anyone, but the answe
r clamored through his brain.
They are evil incarnate.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“I beg you,” Jean-François pleaded in the overcrowded lobby of the St. Vincent Medical Center. “I must speak with Sergeant Sanchez immediately. The outcome of the war may depend on it!”
“No can do, mac,” answered the hefty triage nurse as she placed a red tag on one bleeding, screaming soldier, then moved on to examine the next.
Jean-François followed her, utterly perplexed. He had the complete backing of Colonel Williams, which meant he had the full backing of the President himself. He had the world’s greatest scientists on their way to Florida to assist him with his project, and he was perched to be the world’s new Oppenheimer. Yet somehow this trivial, self-important woman was able to thwart his ability to move forward.
He had been absolutely overjoyed earlier that day when the Canadian Lieutenant had brought him the alien weapon to study and analyze—overjoyed and terrified. It was so beyond anything he had ever seen, anything he had ever read or heard about, and he dared not press a button.
Human weaponry had always been based on the notion of thrusting foreign objects into the bodies of their enemies—metal blades, flying projectiles, germs—but the alien weapon removed portions of their enemies’ bodies, leaving not a trace. Given that, and given the aliens’ wormhole capabilities, Jean-François was working on the assumption that the technology was based on some kind of space-time-quantum theory. If that were the case—and he had no real certainty that it was—the weapon could theoretically possess an infinite range and a perpetual velocity. But the battles he had watched on the WTLV monitors showed otherwise. The weapons’ range seemed less than that of a standard M16, and the velocity too weak to break through a mere foot of steel.
Why would a warmongering people devise weapons less powerful than their theoretical maximum? Could there be some setting switches to adjust velocity and range? He saw many buttons that could be, but he dared not touch them.
And why did they emit such deafening charges? Theoretically, they should make no sound at all. Was the noise a mere ploy to achieve some psychological advantage in battle? (It was.) Or was Jean-François just barking up the wrong tree altogether? (He wasn’t.)
But if the gun did in fact possess infinite range and perpetual velocity, and if Jean-François and the team he had assembled could decipher the science behind it, it would mean that a human soldier could theoretically shoot down the alien craft that orbited above them in space. The enemy would have no more soldiers to replace their fallen. America’s overseas allies would be freed to send their forces to Florida to help slay the last of the bugs. And the war would be over.
On the other hand, if used incorrectly, the weapon could render all of Earth into oblivion. Jean-François dared not touch the thing.
But one human already had—and she had used the weapon with deft proficiency. Whether she had intuitively known something or she had just been lucky, whatever the Latina had done she had done right. Jean-François simply needed to get her back to his lab where the precious weapon remained under lock and key—it being far too powerful and mysterious for him to risk brandishing it about. But this annoying little woman stood in his way.
“You don’t understand,” he reiterated. “Our very survival as a species may well depend on the knowledge that Sergeant Sanchez alone possesses.”
“No, you don’t understand,” the fat nurse replied as she placed a yellow tag on the next wounded soldier, then moved on again. “No one knows what kind of virus Sanchez has or how it spreads, so no one goes into that quarantine until the doctors get direction from Atlanta. I’m trying to save our species too, mac.”
“I’ll take this straight to the President.”
“Good for you,” said the nurse. “I don’t work for the President.” Then she moved off, down the hallway and away from him for good.
Jean-François sighed, then left the hospital to head back to his new lab.
The early evening air was thick and humid, and the Northbank roads were a flurry of activity. A big meeting had just broken up at the Omni Hotel where some new military strategy had been adopted, and soldiers were hurriedly running from hither to yon as they prepared to head into battle.
But the astrophysicist barely noticed them as he planned his next call to the Colonel. He had no doubt he would receive the support he needed—and if for any reason he didn’t, he would sneak into the quarantine area to speak with Sanchez anyway, bug-gun in tow. Virus be damned. Even if it rivaled the Black Plague, which was unlikely, humanity did manage to survive that horror. Without knowledgeable use of the weapon, it didn’t look like we could ever survive this one. Beyond that, the scientific benefits this new technology could wield were unfathomable. And even beyond that, he just had to know! How does the damn thing work?
He arrived at his lab to find the door unlocked, even though he knew with certainty that he had locked it before leaving. He went inside and was startled to find someone removing the precious weapon from the now-open safe. The physicist recognized the man and couldn’t comprehend why he would be so reckless.
“Are you crazy?!” yelled the Frenchman. “Put that down right now! Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“We can’t let you have this,” the man said as he pointed the weapon at the scientist’s chest. “You know that, don’t you?”
Jean-François understood in an instant. “You’re the spy.”
“I am indeed.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“You can out me now. I have no choice.”
Jean-François sighed. There was no escape for him. There was nowhere to run, and he knew that no amount of begging or crying would make a difference to a bug. “Je comprend,” he said stoically as he bravely accepted his fate.
“Don’t feel too bad, little human. It was only a matter of days till you’d be dead anyway.”
“May I ask one small favor before you end my life?”
“You can ask.”
“How does it work?” beseeched the Frenchman. “What is the science upon which it is based? Please. I must know.”
“Monsieur, je suis un espion, pas un scientist. Je ne sais pas comment ça marche.”
And with that, the spy blasted a one-inch void through the center of Jean-François’s heart. The weapon emitted no sound at all.
The spy then peeled open the human skin that covered his head and thorax. He set free his lower arms, which had been concealed within his costume, stretching them outward to the sky like an early morning yawn. During this, he used his upper left arm to tap upon the keypad that was strapped to his upper right.
The floor shook slightly when a small wormhole, roughly the size of a duffel bag, appeared in the air, hovering by the spy’s midsection. He placed the alien weapon inside, removed a small scroll of parchment and read his new orders, then grabbed two pens from Jean-François’s desk. While holding the parchment with his two left ungues, he used his two right ones to draft his new report—writing top-down with his upper unguis to describe the new information he had gathered since his last communiqué, writing bottom-up with his lower to offer new insights and suggestions. When the two reports met in the middle, he was done.
He rolled the parchment back into a scroll and placed it in the wormhole next to the rifle, then tapped upon his keypad. The floor shook slightly, and the wormhole snapped shut and vanished. The spy tucked his lower arms back between his thorax and abdomen, sealed up his human skin, and ran off.
Jean-François’s dead body would not be found for nearly twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Request permission to retreat!” Major Shaughnessy shouted through his gas mask and into his wrist-mike.
He was crouched under a window in an office on the fourth floor of some building—he didn’t even know which one at this point. The place was filled with the gray tear gas that the aliens had fired into every building in which they suspected
human soldiers hid. Although the bugs seemed quite dedicated to preserving every structure, they had no qualms about crashing windows or breaking doors.
White beams whizzed everywhere, and their deafening roars boomed. Shaughnessy knew he had been lucky to receive one of the gas masks—it hadn’t been due to his rank, he was merely in the right building when the supply runners snuck south. Those less fortunate had the choice of choking to death inside or running out into the streets for air to be gunned down in cold-insect blood.
He was at his wit’s end. He had managed to keep the bugs in Southpoint as he had been ordered, yes, but at a great cost. The morning had begun with close to ten thousands troops under his command. Now, with the sun having set in the West, the final hues of light just peaking over the horizon, it was less than two thousand.
He and his men had tried everything. They had snuck from one building to another to blast a few rounds from open windows to make the enemy think the human numbers were greater than they were. They had attached automatic timers to M16s, then balanced the guns in the arms of mannequins, forcing the enemy to waste time searching empty buildings. One little trick after another, but in the long run, none of it seemed to matter much.
“Permission denied, Major,” Colonel William’s staticky voice bellowed through the Major’s earpiece. “We need you to hold your position.”
“We cannot, sir!” Shaughnessy pleaded. “It’s a bleedin’ suicide mission!”
“Major, this is President Willis,” came a reassuring voice. “You’ve done an outstanding job, son, under impossible circumstances, and we’re all proud of you. But I need you to hold just a little bit longer. Reinforcements are on the way.”
“Reinforcements?” asked the Major, as much to himself as the President. He had been involved in all stages of the early planning. He knew well the total numbers of their volunteers, and that they had shot their wad on this one battle.
He grabbed the binoculars strapped to his neck and looked north to see thousands of new soldiers miles away, advancing toward him like armed angels.