Seething with anger, the president turned toward his secretary of defense ready to unload on him. Then, just as quickly, he turned away. There was no time to dwell on his treasonous behavior now. He would deal with Nimziki in the future, if there was one.
“What about our forces? What kind of capability have we got left?”
“We’re down to approximately fifteen percent, sir.” Grey gave him a moment to soak that in before spelling out the dreadful consequences. “Calculating the time it’s taking them to destroy a city and move on, we’re looking at worldwide destruction of every major city within the next thirty-six hours.”
Whitmore took a long, calm drink of water. “We’re being exterminated.” That was an ugly way to describe the situation, one that made the players in the room bristle uncomfortably, but no one could think of a more accurate term. A knock came at the door.
“Mr. President.” Major Mitchell entered. “I have that pilot you wanted to meet.”
“Show him in.”
Whitmore stood up and straightened his tie as Mitchell waved Steve in the door. Still wearing the same sweat-soaked undershirt and combat pants he’d marched across the desert in, Steve didn’t feel ready to meet a roomful of powerful white people, especially the president.
“Captain Steven Hiller, sir,” he announced with a ramrod salute.
“At ease.” The president smiled without returning the salute. His enthusiasm immediately put Steve more at ease. “It’s an honor to meet you, Captain. You did one hell of a job out there today.”
“Thank you, sir. Just trying to do my job.”
“You’re out of El Toro, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Black Knights, first squadron.”
“Have you ever heard of the Hellcats out of Fort Bragg?”
Steve couldn’t repress a quick smile. He knew Whitmore had been a fighter pilot, of course. During the Gulf War, the Hellcats had become a household word. But he hadn’t expected any pilot talk during a meeting with the commander in chief. “I’ve heard of them,” he said.
“What have you heard?” Whitmore pressed him.
“Second best unit in the whole damned armed services, sir. Right behind the Knights.”
Now both of them were grinning in mutual admiration. “Where’s that prisoner you brought in?”
Mitchell saw his opening and jumped in. He wanted to get over to the operating theater and observe. “He’s in a medical containment area, sir. The doctors are optimistic that he’ll survive.”
“I don’t know if that’s cause for optimism,” the president said, “but I’d like to have a look at this thing.”
That was the cue for the president’s staff to snatch their papers off the table and prepare to move. General Grey stepped forward and expressed his misgivings about the plan, but Whitmore was determined. “See to it this man gets whatever he needs,” he said, pointing to Steve before leaving the room at the head of his entourage.
“Excuse me, General.” Steve caught Grey’s attention as he was about to leave for the medical area. “I’m real anxious to get back to El Toro.”
Now that he’d turned the alien over, there wasn’t much reason for him to stick around. And he kept hearing Jimmy’s voice in his head telling him Jasmine might have survived the blast. If she had, there was only one place he knew to look for her. He asked the general if he could have some time on one of the radios or if a message could be sent.
Grey stopped dead in his tracks and put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, son. I guess you haven’t heard. El Toro was destroyed this morning in the attack.”
Shattered, Steve stood still, trying to breathe as the general hurried off to join the others.
*
A blood orange moon lit the path through the ruins. An hour after they’d left to search for supplies, Jasmine and Dylan came picking their way through the dark toward a roaring campfire. Each of them carried a box loaded with cans of food salvaged from the remains of the base’s cafeteria. Dylan’s box held an industrial-sized can of baked beans that weighed half as much as he did and a bunch of bent spoons they’d found in the dirt. Before they left the pantry, they’d thrown boards over the opening and covered them with dirt.
“Okay, folks, dinner is served.” Jas set the box down and then took a set of steak knives from her pocket. “We’ll use these for can openers.”
The quiet man had taken charge in Jasmine’s absence and done quite a job. The First Lady was laying on a bed of cardboard and folded clothes, his jacket neatly folded under her head as a pillow. Jas had started a small fire before she left, but he’d improved it considerably, building a neatly stacked bonfire straight off the cover of a scouting magazine.
“Hey, you did a nice job. I hardly recognize the old place.”
She went to check on the president’s wife, who tried to sit up when she saw Jasmine coming. The effort cost her a great deal of pain. She went into a coughing fit, her lungs filling with fluid.
When Jas got her settled down again, she scolded, “Don’t move like that. I’m serious. You keep as still as you can tonight, and in the morning we’ll get you some help.”
She helped the injured woman sip some pineapple juice. Then the two of them stared into the fire for a long time without saying anything.
The quiet man had opened a can of frankfurters for Dylan who was doing the Dance of Happiness while he ate. The dance consisted of staring at the sky and wiggling his butt back and forth to express how good the food was. The motion was repeated with each mouthful. Jasmine watched him gyrate, stonefaced. Tonight they would feast, but in the days to come she knew there would be famine. Where would tomorrow’s meal come from?
“Your son,” Mrs. Whitmore said weakly, “he’s beautiful.”
Jasmine was about to scold her again for not resting, but instead, she allowed, “He’s my angel.”
“Was his father stationed here?”
Jasmine let out a deep, resigned sigh. “Well, he wasn’t his father. I was sort of hoping he’d want the job, though.” She threw a pebble into the flames. She was about to start bawling her eyes out again, but forced herself not to.
The other woman could sense it was time to change the subject. “So, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a dancer.”
“How wonderful. Modern? Ballet?”
Jasmine smiled at the flames. “No, exotic,” she announced, glancing at the president’s wife, wondering how many strippers she’d ever met and whether that wouldn’t be a bee in her high-class bonnet.
“Oh… sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Jas told her, “I’m not. It’s not where I thought I’d end up, but the money’s real good, and besides,” she lifted her chin toward Dylan, “he’s worth taking good care of.”
Jas didn’t usually go around telling people what she did for a living. She wasn’t ashamed of it, but she wasn’t proud, either. When the subject came up, she’d sometimes lie, sometimes tell the truth, and sometimes give no answer at all. This was one of those times she wished she hadn’t told the truth, because she was pretty sure a respectable gal like the president’s wife wasn’t going to have a whole lot to say to her afterward. She wanted to say something else, something like “Don’t worry, just cause I’m a stripper. I’m still going to find you a doctor in the morning.” But that would have sounded stupid.
“And what are you going to do when the dancing’s over?” Marilyn asked. “What about your future?”
Jasmine smiled again, this time because the First Lady’s question was one she’d asked herself a million times. It had been a monkey on her back from which she suddenly felt herself released. “You know, I used to ask myself that question every day, but you know what? I don’t think it matters anymore.”
“Mommy, can I have some more weenies?”
“Sugar, come over here to mama for a minute. I want you to meet the First Lady.” Dylan, hoping it might lead to more weenies, came over to be introduced.
; “That’s funny. I was sure you didn’t recognize me.”
“Well, I didn’t want to say anything. I voted for the other guy.”
*
Dr. Okun put his face close to the lens of the video camera. “This recording is being made on July Fourth at six forty-five P.M. The alien sustained a violent plane crash this morning at approximately nine o’clock. As you can see—” he stepped away revealing the eight-foot-long creature strapped down to an operating table “—the thing appears to be very weak.” Indeed, the only signs of life came from the short tentacles on the face which twitched and twisted sporadically. The four longer dorsal tentacles, measuring between six and twelve feet, had been tucked haphazardly under the thick retaining straps and remained motionless.
The operating theater, as this tiled room with stainless steel trimmings was known, had several tall windows of reinforced glass looking out onto the storage/lecture room Okun had called the Freak Show. The great tubes holding the bodies of the three dead aliens were visible in the darkened chamber beyond. Three assistants moved efficiently about the room: a woman anesthesiologist and two male orderlies. One of the men made adjustments to a complicated piece of machinery connected by a series of flexible hoses to a large vat of formaldehyde. The other orderly handed Okun a set of tools, a mallet and a chisel as thick as a railroad tie. Okun, ever the showman, held them in the air, pretending to be Dr. Frankenstein in an old movie.
“All the life-support monitors are recording?” The anesthesiologist nodded her head then the doctor continued speaking to the camera. “We’re going to split the skull open and peel it back in order to reach the living creature inside. This,” he said, rapping on the yellowish exoskeleton, “is only a suit of armor. The animal you are seeing now is actually a completely separate species which the aliens raise to maturity, slaughter, then gut. The internal organs are scooped out, but the musculature is preserved. The skull and chest have a seam down the middle allowing the aliens to slip in and out. So they wear the body of this other creature, sort of like crawling inside a zombie. Then, by a process we may never understand, the physical impulses of the frail creature inside are carried out by the corpse of this much larger, much stronger animal. Notice how the tentacles seem to flop around with little control. As you will see in a moment, the animal inside has no tentacles, so it may be that they are not able to manipulate these extra arms. Alas, until we find a healthy specimen to study, this bioarmor will remain a mystery. Gentlemen, are you ready?”
His assistants were more than ready; they wanted to get this business done and get out of there. While Okun hammed it up for the video camera, the others were keeping tense eyes on the bony leviathan strapped to the table, half expecting it to roar to life at any moment.
Working the chisel into the seam of the skull, Okun delivered a few sharp whacks, each one causing the gruesome sound of cracking bones. The men, Colin and Patrick, tugged in opposite directions until the skull gave way. They peeled the meat and ligament back until it lay flat on the table.
“Oh, Jesus!” The smell coming from the inside of the suit backed the four humans away. “Stinks like ammonia,” said Patrick, his eyes watering up. “We gotta open the door.” He was already at the security keypad when Okun realized what he was doing.
“No!” the doctor shouted. “We can’t risk releasing an airborne virus. Turn up the ventilation system. Jenny, stand by with one hundred cc’s of sodium Pentothal just in case our little friend here decides to get rowdy.”
While the others gagged on the fumes and tried to clear their eyes, Okun returned to examining the creature. The crown of the alien’s head was visible tucked into the chest cavity of its host animal. He ripped open the throat and upper chest of the armor until the fleshy, bulbous head of the alien lay exposed. The huge lidless black eyes stared back up at him. Okun bent close to examine the creature’s face, slathered in a thick coat of gelatinous slime, the material that passed the alien’s impulses out to the armor-body. The eyes showed no response, but the beaklike nose began to twitch as Okun hovered over it. One of the facial tentacles curled towards the eyes, moving weakly back and forth. Okun poked at it once before letting it curl around the finger of his gloved hand with the strength of a newborn baby. It seemed to be the same kind of friendly gesture he had read about in the extensive notes left by his predecessor, Dr. Welles.
“Damn!” Colin returned to the table as the ventilation system began filtering out the worst of the powerful, pungent odor. “They’ve conquered space travel but not BO.”
“Release me,” Okun said softly to no one in particular.
“Pardon?” Everyone looked up at the doctor for an explanation, but he seemed not to realize he’d said anything.
“Okay, let’s pull him out of there. I’ll—” He broke off in midsentence, staring out into space.
“Doctor? Doctor Okun, you all right?”
He stared back at them for a moment as if he were having trouble remembering who they were and where he was. Then, just as quickly, he snapped out of it. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think the fumes are starting to get to me a little.”
“The tentacles are showing increased activity, doctor. Shall I go ahead and inject the Pentothal?” Jenny asked.
Sodium Pentothal, most famous as a supposed “truth serum,” was a common barbiturate used to tranquilize patients during medical procedures.
“No. Bad idea. No injections.” Okun was staring straight ahead once more, talking in a calm, almost slurred voice. “Remove the restraints.”
His assistants were accustomed to Okun acting strangely, but they’d never seen him do anything downright spooky. Seemingly disoriented, his head slowly swiveled around on his shoulders while his eyes darted from one thing to the next, investigating the room around him. Then he reached up and grabbed his head with his free hand, obviously in agony. He shouted once, gripped by a vicious pain coursing through his head. Jenny nudged the orderly standing next to her, using her eyes to call attention to the doctor’s wrist. One of the tentacles from the creature’s back had slipped free and wrapped itself around Okun’s wrist just above the rubber glove.
“Let’s stick him,” she ordered.
Patrick pulled back the thick flesh of the armor-body and wiped at the alien’s neck with an alcohol swab. Jenny stabbed the hypodermic needle into the translucent flesh and began to squeeze the plunger. Before anyone had time to flinch, the tentacle holding Okun’s wrist flashed over the table and whipped Jenny across the face, knocking her across the room in a spatter of blood. Lightning fast, the same powerful arm tore the restraining belts away, breaking them off where they were bolted to the steel frame, then cracked down savagely on Colin’s head as he turned to run for the door. Patrick picked up a surgeon’s scalpel, waving the small weapon threateningly, as if that would be enough to protect him from this ferocious, overpowering beast. It stood up, its sharp claw-like feet clacking on the clean linoleum floor, and charged across the room. Two of the tentacles pinned his arms while a third impaled him, stabbing into his heart and coming out the other side. Patrick’s body smashed into the formaldehyde tank, shattering it. As the contents of the tank flooded onto the floor of the operating theater, one of the vacuum tubes was torn loose, gushing great quantities of steam into the air.
The vaultlike door pushed open and Mitchell showed the president, his advisers, and bodyguards into the storage vault. The operating theater was completely hidden by a thick cloud of steam. When Mitchell saw this, he reached down and unsnapped the flap on his pistol. Before he could withdraw it, one Secret Service man had pulled the president away and the other had a revolver pointed directly at the major’s head. The big soldier never noticed. Realizing something had gone wrong, he rushed to the window and activated the intercom system.
“Dr. Okun, can you hear me?” he called. “If you can hear me, sir, say something so we know you’re all right.” There was no response. The clouds of steam rolled silently behind the glass. Mitchell turned to the pre
sident. “Sir, there’s a—”
Slam! Okun’s blood-smeared body smashed violently against the glass, a thick tangle of quivering tentacle wrapped around his throat. It was impossible to know if he was dead or alive. Camouflaged by the thick fog, the alien forced the scientist’s face tightly against the glass, pushing it out of shape. Okun’s mouth opened and words came out, but the voice was not his. The words were barely intelligible, like a dead man’s last breath passing over his vocal chords.
“Lelethe meh. Lelethe meh,” the voice croaked.
“We’ve got to get him out of there,” Mitchell yelled. “I’ll go around and open the door.”
“Stay where you are,” General Grey ordered. He stepped closer to the window. “Doctor Okun, can you hear me?”
Slowly, Okun’s lips opened again, and this time the words were more intelligible. “…will kill… release me. Now!”
Grey and the others began to understand what was happening. The alien was speaking through Okun, controlling his body like a ventriloquist controls a wooden dummy. The formaldehyde tank had shut itself off and the ventilation system was slowly clearing the atmosphere inside the room. Slowly, they were able to see where the tentacle holding Okun to the glass came from. It led up to where the creature hung from the ceiling, frantically clawing at an air duct in an attempt to escape. Frustrated, the animal dropped to the floor, then advanced toward the windows through the swirling steam.
Its indistinct outline stood writhing at the center of the clearing room. Okun had been half right about the tentacles. The creature inside had no corresponding limbs to control those on the suit. They danced and jangled without direction until the alien, by force of concentration, made them do its bidding.
They were, in fact, the alien’s weapon of choice, having trained with them from birth.
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 21