by Mark Alpert
“You shouldn’t have threatened her. When this is over, I’m going to kill you.”
Although the room was quite warm by now, the general shivered. Emilio’s voice was so definite, so cold.
Hanson shook off his fear. The boy was helpless. In all likelihood, he’d spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison. “We’re going to figure out how to get that weapon out of your arm. After that, you’re welcome to take your best shot at me.”
“It’s coming, pendejo. You’re a dead man.”
* * *
An hour later Hanson was a few hundred yards away, at the McGuire Air Base headquarters, sitting behind a console in a high-ceilinged room that was serving as his new command post. On the wall was a jumbo screen, similar to the one in the Space Operations Center at Vandenberg, but instead of displaying the Earth and its satellites, this screen showed a map of New York City and the surrounding area. Flashing icons on the map indicated the positions of Army battalions and Navy ships and Air Force squadrons. Hanson had ordered all these units into position to prepare for the counterattack.
There were fifteen consoles in the room, but all of them were unmanned except for Hanson’s. Although the Orion Plan had grown into a huge operation, it was still strictly classified, which meant that only senior staff could enter the command post. Twenty-five minutes from now, at 1800 hours, Hanson’s colonels would arrive for the mission briefing and he would give them their orders. But until then he had the rare opportunity to go over his plans in solitude.
He gazed at the jumbo screen and tallied up the forces he’d arrayed for the battle. He’d had some amazingly good luck: the Army had been able to send a rapid-deployment battalion from Fort Bragg and another from Fort Benning. A Navy destroyer had rushed to New York Harbor from a training exercise in the Atlantic, and four squadrons of F-22 jets had flown across the country to McGuire. But Hanson’s best weapons were the Tomahawk cruise missiles. He had more than a hundred and fifty Tomahawks at his disposal, waiting in launch tubes on the USS Florida, a guided-missile submarine farther out at sea.
He grinned. He couldn’t help it. Like all commanders, he loved having the advantage of superior numbers. And the Department of Homeland Security had aided his operations by enlarging the evacuation zone. The civilian authorities, still under the impression that the military was fighting terrorists, had ordered the residents of a large part of Manhattan—everything north of 180th Street—to leave their apartment buildings. The authorities had also cut off the electricity to the area, making it harder for the alien machines to draw power from the grid.
The final step in Hanson’s preparations was eliminating the enemy’s beamed-energy weapons. The Special Tactics commandos were already racing to the addresses that Emilio Martinez had provided. Hanson felt confident that his men would capture most, if not all, of the collaborators within the next few hours. That meant he could start the counterattack anytime after midnight.
He was concerned, though, about the security of his communications. Hanson suspected that the enemy had hacked into the military’s data networks and figured out how to decipher its coded messages. How else could it have learned where Sarah Pooley had been detained? And though the problem was bad enough now, it would become much more of a threat during combat, because the enemy would be able to eavesdrop on all of Hanson’s commands. That was why he’d asked all his senior officers to come to McGuire and meet in person. To minimize the need for battlefield communications, he was going to give his men very specific orders.
Hanson had just finished writing those orders—on paper, so they couldn’t be hacked—when the first of his officers arrived for the briefing. It was Colonel Gunter, the good ol’ boy from Mississippi who’d done such a fine job of monitoring Dr. Pooley. He marched to Hanson’s console and gave a smart salute. The old soldier’s cheeks were flushed and he was breathing hard. A courier bag, colored Air Force blue, was slung over his shoulder.
“I just got back from Washington, sir,” he drawled. “And I have some news.”
Hanson sat up straight. He’d ordered Gunter to go to the Pentagon to get final instructions from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but because Hanson had banned his men from communicating by phone or computer or radio, he didn’t know yet what those instructions were. His anticipation was so intense, his hands started to sweat.
“How’d it go?” He tried, in vain, to sound casual. “Did we get the green light?”
To Hanson’s dismay, Colonel Gunter shook his head. “I’m afraid not, sir. The Joint Chiefs want you to stand down for at least twenty-four hours.”
The general couldn’t believe it. He was aghast. “Stand down? Are they insane?”
Gunter kept shaking his head. He looked disgusted. “The chiefs said the decision came from the White House. The science adviser there, some guy named Gilbert, argued for a halt in the hostilities. He apparently received a communication from the probe.”
Hanson was so stunned he couldn’t speak. He leaned back in his chair, stomach churning, and stared at Gunter. The colonel opened his courier bag and started rummaging inside it, looking for something.
“This Gilbert said he met a man who claimed he was translating for the probe’s computer program. It was a crazy story and no one at the White House believed it at first, but then Gilbert showed off some high-tech thingamajig that the translator had given him.” Gunter finally found what he wanted and pulled it out of the bag. It was a document marked TOP SECRET. “The device sent a huge load of data to Gilbert’s laptop, and when the president’s security advisers looked at it they went nuts. The files had information on all kinds of advanced technologies—beamed energy, biological engineering, nanotech, you name it.”
The colonel placed the document in front of Hanson, on the table beside his console. Hanson picked it up and started leafing through its pages, but he was too flustered to read the thing. After a few seconds he put it down. “And this convinced the White House to call off the counterattack?”
“Along with the data, there was a message from the program, which called itself the Emissary. It promised to send more details about the technologies if we agreed to a truce. It also promised to stop expanding its operations across New York City as long as we keep our soldiers away from its machinery on Sherman Avenue. It said the firefight last night was a tragic accident that only happened because it was programmed to defend itself.”
“Defend itself?” Hanson gaped in disbelief. “The probe attacked us first! It put its weapons inside those boys and turned them into killers!”
“The Emissary said it took those actions before it realized the nature of our species. It also said it could remove the implants without causing any permanent damage to the teenagers.”
Hanson was too agitated to sit there. He jumped to his feet and pointed at Gunter’s chest. “And what about my soldiers? The men who were incinerated by those weapons? What about the permanent damage to them?”
The colonel stepped backward, startled. It looked as if he were afraid Hanson might take a swing at him. “Sir, I agree with you a hundred percent. I argued the same thing in front of the chiefs, but they said the White House was adamant.”
“Fucking hell!” He raised his voice, venting his anger. “How could they be so goddamn stupid?”
Gunter looked over his shoulder, making sure no one else was in the room. Then he pointed at the document on the table. “To be honest, sir, I think it’s these technologies. The experts have only started to study the data, but they’re already predicting that amazing things will come out of it—new rockets and computers and robots and medicines.” He tapped the document’s cover. “And new weapons too, sir. Maybe even more powerful than the ones the probe used against us. I think that’s the biggest factor for the president’s advisers. They’re willing to call a truce because of what the Emissary’s offering. It wouldn’t give us all these powerful technologies if it wanted to kill us, right?”
Hanson picked up the document again and
tried to focus on it. The pages were crowded with mathematical formulas. It had been a long time since he’d studied physics at MIT, but some of the equations looked familiar. He turned the pages and saw more formulas, plus many paragraphs of explanation. But there were no schematics, no technical illustrations. Even if the equations were valid, the document had none of the engineering plans for the promised machines.
He dropped the document on the table. “You know what that thing is? It’s a trinket. It’s a necklace of shiny beads.”
Gunter raised his eyebrows. “Sir? I don’t know what—”
“It’s like what the English colonists gave to the Native Americans. Shiny trinkets. Something to keep them amused while the white men stole their land.” He pointed at the map on the jumbo screen. “The Emissary is just playing for time. It’s tantalizing us with these technologies, but at the same time it’s getting ready to destroy us. We have to attack it now, before its machinery spreads too far and gets too strong. Otherwise, we’re doomed.”
The colonel nodded, but Hanson sensed he didn’t really understand. Although Gunter was an excellent soldier in many respects—loyal, wily, persistent—he wasn’t a strategic thinker. He couldn’t see the big picture. Uncertain, Gunter pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. “Sir, the Joint Chiefs ordered us to suspend the attack, but they haven’t ordered us to withdraw our forces. If the Emissary breaks the truce and the alien machines keep spreading, we can still launch the Tomahawks.”
Hanson shook his head. This is a mistake, he thought. Any delay is dangerous. “And how are we supposed to monitor this truce? We can’t detect the probe’s cables. We have no idea where they’re going underground or what they’re doing down there.”
“That’s true, sir. But the White House is working on the problem. They’re trying to establish a reliable communications link with the Emissary, either by connecting our fiber-optic lines to the probe’s cables or working with that translator. According to Gilbert, he’s a doctor who fell on hard times and ended up living in Inwood Hill Park. The probe found him there and injected its devices into his brain.”
“The Emissary’s translator is a homeless man?”
Gunter shrugged. “I guess the probe took what it could get. The Emissary’s keeping the man hidden until the truce is finalized, but Gilbert said he had a way of getting in touch with him. The go-between is apparently our old friend Sarah Pooley.”
Hanson felt another surge of anger. So that’s where she went! The Emissary must’ve seen Dr. Pooley’s reports and realized she’d make a good ally. She’d finally found her evidence of extraterrestrial life, and now she was getting a chance to study it. “Who the hell does she think she is?”
“Sir?”
“She thinks she can make the decisions for everyone. The arrogant bitch.” He spat the last word, unable to stop himself. He was so angry he could feel the blood pulsing in his neck. “We should order the FBI and the police to look for Pooley. Her and the homeless translator.”
Gunter raised his eyebrows again. “Uh, I don’t think we have the authority to do that, sir. The White House is serious about pursuing these negotiations.” The colonel had a look of disapproval on his face, which only made Hanson angrier. The old fool probably had a soft spot for Pooley. “In the meantime, should I cancel the mission briefing? I can alert the other senior officers.”
Hanson turned away from him. He stared at the jumbo screen instead, the map showing the flashing icons in New York and New Jersey and off the East Coast, each representing an infantry unit or a squadron of planes or a naval vessel. In his mind’s eye, he saw the icons fading, vanishing from the screen. That’s what would happen if they delayed the attack for too long. The Emissary would obliterate his army, and every other army on the planet.
I won’t let it happen, Hanson thought. That’s not my destiny.
He waited until his temples stopped pounding. Then he turned back to Gunter. “I want you to go back to Washington. Immediately. You’re going to deliver a message to the Joint Chiefs and the National Security Council.”
The colonel nodded. “Yes, sir! What’s the message?”
“Tell them I have grave concerns about the enemy’s machinery at 172 Sherman Avenue. When my men inspected the metallic box in that apartment last night, they found indications that weapons might be hidden inside it.” In truth, there were no such indications, but that didn’t matter. Hanson knew beyond a doubt that the enemy was hiding something there. “Before we finalize the truce, the Emissary has to allow us to inspect that machinery. We need to make sure it’s not trying to deceive us.”
“That sounds reasonable, sir.”
“And one more thing. I want you to get in touch with the engineers at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Find out everything they’ve learned about the beamed-energy weapon we retrieved from Mr. Guzman’s corpse. And tell them to come up with options for taking advantage of what they know.”
Gunter cocked his head. The old colonel seemed curious. “You have a plan in mind, sir?”
“Not yet. But I have an idea.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Joe spent the whole afternoon lying on a park bench in the Bronx. His sleep was fitful, and his dreams were full of worms.
They weren’t ordinary earthworms. They were monstrous creatures, as thick as tree trunks and hundreds of feet long. Their skin wasn’t soft and pink—it was hard and brown and covered with scaly ridges. At one end of each worm’s body was a ravenous red mouth, with thousands of teeth plowing and churning the soil. At the other end was a jagged spike.
Joe woke up, sweating, at least half a dozen times. The bench sat under the trees, but it was still unbearably hot. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all if he wasn’t so damn tired. After leaving Yankee Stadium that morning he’d walked across the Bronx like a zombie, heading north and then east. He’d finally stopped at Crescent Park on 233rd Street and collapsed on the bench, unable to take another step. He was about a mile from his old apartment building in Riverdale.
Every time he woke, Joe lifted his head from the bench’s slats and looked around anxiously. His dreams had been so vivid he half-expected to see the giant worms in the park. Heart thumping, he looked up and down the street until he satisfied himself that everything was normal. Then he felt the overpowering fatigue again and went back to sleep.
But the bad dreams always returned. He saw the worms swarming in a deep, dark cavern. They clumped together in an enormous, living cluster, their bodies in constant motion, sliding and squirming. He saw one of the worms attack another, its teeth ripping into the hard, brown skin and its spike plunging into the red flesh underneath. Then he saw a worm slide into a long, flexible tube, constructed from a dozen rings of stone. The rings had been carved from the rocky walls of the cavern and strung together with plant roots. It was a suit of armor.
The worms made that thing, Joe realized. They’re an intelligent species.
He woke up for a moment, terrified, then drifted off again. In his next dream he saw an army of worms, hundreds of them, all wearing their stone armor. They left their cavern together, carving tunnels through the soil, and burst into another cavern that was crowded with worms of a slightly different color. The creatures roiled in the darkness, biting and stabbing. Red flesh splattered on the cavern’s walls.
Joe was nauseous and panting when he finally woke up for good. He sat upright on the bench and pressed his hand to his chest, trying to calm his throbbing heart. His vision was tinged with red, which seemed to be a remnant of his dreams. His new pants, so neatly pressed this morning, were now wrinkled and dirty, and his shirt was drenched with sweat.
He took a couple of deep breaths and looked straight ahead, gazing at the cars parked on 233rd Street. He tried again to reassure himself that everything was okay, but he knew the images he’d just seen weren’t really dreams. They hadn’t come from his own mind, his own imagination. Those pictures had come from the Emissary. The program had streamed the information to
his brain this morning, to prepare him for his meeting with Tom Gilbert and Sarah Pooley. The images had embedded themselves in his memory.
He needed to speak with the Emissary. He looked down and stared at the cigarette butts on the ground.
“What were those creatures? Were they the life-forms that created you? The First People?”
No, they’re the Second People. The species that we nearly exterminated.
Joe shook his head. “They’re so horrible. So violent.”
They’re simply a product of their environment, like all living things. They dwelled on a planet with limited resources, so there was fierce competition. Evolution favored the rise of intelligent creatures that could build weapons and defend their territories. And kill their rivals.
“But it’s such a waste. Once they became intelligent, why didn’t they agree to stop fighting?”
Look at your own species. In some ways, the human race is very similar to the Second People. Your wars are just as violent and wasteful. And you show no signs that you’re ever going to stop.
“What about the First People? Are they different?”
The Emissary didn’t answer. Joe waited ten seconds, twenty seconds, but she said nothing. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts, trying to compel her to respond.
“What’s going on? You don’t want to talk about your creators?”
Yes, the First People are different. They’re so different from your species that I’m reluctant to describe them. You might become confused and afraid.
“What do they look like?”
Joe thought the Emissary would show him a picture, but she didn’t. He sensed that the images of the First People were already inside his head, part of the stream of information she’d embedded in his brain, but for some reason she wouldn’t let him see them. This refusal worried him.
“What’s wrong? Are they more horrible than the worms?”
You’re not ready yet. In good time, I’ll show you pictures of the First People. For now, though, I can tell you that they benefited from a very abundant environment. First Planet is rich with natural resources, so rich that evolution proceeded on a special path there. Predators never evolved. All of the planet’s species received their sustenance from sunlight.