Kerr nodded and ran to where Ivan was stuck. Jack followed him while the rest of them carried on.
“Anna,” Jack said. “How far away are they?”
“Please hold. I am moving the second drone into position.”
Please hold? What was this, a help line?
He and Kerr arrived to find Yuri pulling at a branch stuck in Ivan’s tread. “Give me a hand with this, will you?”
The three men grabbed hold and rocked it back and forth in an effort to pry it loose.
“Geez, Ivan,” Kerr said. “How the hell’d you wedge this in so bad?”
“Dr. Greer, I am picking up movement on the jungle floor three hundred meters away and closing fast.”
They gave it one final go with everything they had. The branch broke free with such force it sent Kerr tumbling backwards. He swung a leg around to stay his fall and twisted his ankle.
“Ah, crap,” he swore, stumbling to the ground. Jack and Yuri helped him to his feet.
“Can you run?” Jack asked him.
Kerr tried to move a few steps and nearly fell again. “Run? The real question is can I walk?”
“How close are they, Anna?”
“One hundred and fifty meters,” she replied. “I recommend you hurry up.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Kerr snapped.
Jack and Yuri positioned themselves on either side of Kerr as the three men began moving again, albeit at a much slower pace.
They didn’t get more than twenty feet before Kerr said, “There’s no way we’re gonna make it. Not like this. Leave me here and I’ll slow them down as long as I can.”
“Don’t be a hero,” Stokes barked from about a hundred yards ahead. “I’ll come back there and carry you myself if I have to.”
As if on cue, Ivan spun around and plucked Kerr out of their grasp and cradled him in his giant metallic arms like a baby. The machine then rolled through the jungle at high speed, giving Kerr a whipping from every branch in his path.
“Dr. Greer, they are fifty meters away from your position.”
“We’re not gonna make it back to the portal,” Stokes said. “We’ll hold up in the greenhouse and wait for sunup. Otherwise those things are gonna pick us off one by one.”
Jack magnified his external audio sensors. If something was scrambling up behind him, he wanted to hear it coming first.
Ivan and Kerr were now about a dozen feet ahead of them.
Struggling through labored breathing, Yuri said, “An old Russian saying about meeting a bear in the woods. You don’t need to outrun the bear. Only the man next to you.” He let out a dry, humorless laugh and pulled slightly ahead. Jack dug down deep, fighting to keep up. This was payback for turning around to help that crazy Russian and his dimwitted robot.
“Ten meters,” Anna called out to him right as he entered the clearing and saw the angled shape of the greenhouse rising up from the ground, its roof nearly hidden by a twisted mangle of psychedelic foliage. Bates and Conroy stood by the entrance, waiting for them. Jack saw their eyes grow wide as they levelled their rifles, aiming in his direction. At once he cut to the right as the soldiers opened fire. Ivan was already inside, Yuri not far behind. That was when the soldiers stopped firing and ran for the greenhouse. Jack hurried along the straight edge of the outer wall, aiming to tuck around and dive into the entrance. He could hear something only feet away, grunting after him. His legs felt light and tingly with the knowledge that any second he might feel the teeth from that meat grinder of a mouth sink into his back. A part of Jack had already begun to accept his fate when he spotted a shape reemerge from the greenhouse entrance. It was Ivan and he extended both arms, firing his twin machine guns on full automatic. Jack reached the entrance and dove in, right as two of the creatures crashed into the robot. He heard the sound of the machine’s heavy pincers clamp down on bone and flesh alike. Then more of the creatures joined in and Ivan was overwhelmed.
Chapter 21
Jack reached the bottom of the staircase to find Stokes and another soldier covering the entrance above. Just outside, signs of a vicious battle were still in progress. Ivan might not be all that smart, but he sure was tough.
Inside the chamber, Yuri paced back and forth. He stopped and faced Jack. “What’s going on up there? Is Ivan okay? He’s not responding.”
“Ivan’s a little busy,” Jack said. “He sacrificed himself to save me, which is more than I could have asked for.”
“We need to head back up there and save him,” Yuri protested, gripping the sides of his helmet.
“Negative,” Stokes replied. “Robots can be replaced, people can’t.”
Suddenly, the air outside grew still.
Jack caught sight of Anna, who also seemed concerned, and not only from the harshness of Stokes’ comment. “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” he asked her.
The expression on her digital face fell. “I will admit, when I first encountered Ivan I was not very impressed. And in no small part due to the poor construction of his neural architecture. Then gradually my perceptions began to change. I am not certain why.”
“He grew on you,” Jack said, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing gently, anxious to keep her mind off of Ivan’s probable demise.
She paused for a moment, working to untangle the literal from the figurative in Jack’s statement. “I believe you are correct. The longer I spent interacting with Ivan, the less his inferior abilities bothered me.”
“Perhaps there was another quality he possessed that impressed you.”
She nodded, scouring the vine-covered floor with her eyes as though searching for something. “He was brave and loyal to his friends.”
“I think you hit the nail on the head.”
Anna’s head jerked to one side in momentary confusion about how Jack’s statement about hammers and nails was relevant. “Oh, yes. I am becoming accustomed to the strange way humans speak. To an outside observer, such methods of speech and action make little sense, although they seem to govern much of human behavior.”
“You’re right, Anna,” Jack told her, forgetting sometimes she wasn’t just like a child. She was like a child from another country and in some ways maybe even from another planet. “A big part of what you’re talking about is culture. Did Rajesh ever teach you about that?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said with a touch of melancholy. “Although I do recall noticing a marked difference between the Real Housewives and their counterparts in Atlanta.” Anna raised her arm and gave three crisp snaps. “Do not get me started, girlfriend.”
Jack laughed and shook his head. “How much of that crap have you watched?”
“Every available episode,” she replied without missing a beat. “Often I view several at the same time.”
“Well, I don’t mind, but some folks get uncomfortable when the topic of race comes up.”
“I fail to understand why.”
“Uh, it’s complicated,” Jack said, feeling this wasn’t the right time or place for such a chat. Where was Rajesh when he needed him? Somehow Jack had become something of a surrogate parent and now the full responsibility for answering all of Anna’s often fair, but rather challenging questions had fallen squarely on him. She could tell you in a heartbeat why the sky was blue or why humans didn’t have tails, the sort of questions parents had dealt with for years. It was the other stuff she had trouble with, the things that hid in the cracks of our daily lives, the things most of us worked hard to avoid. Those were the things Anna wanted to know about most. Her sense of wonder and insatiable curiosity were part of what set her so far apart from anything that had ever come before her. Of course, the flipside was the burden Jack now bore to ensure he taught her the truth of what it meant to be a human being without crushing the light that made her want to know in the first place. He let out a deep, ragged breath. “How do I put this? A lot of folks have a view that something which is starkly different from them is bad.”
“Why bad? Why not
better?”
This wasn’t going well. “I suppose because each of us thinks of ourselves as the hero of our own story. At heart, that’s what we are, as humans. We’re storytellers. Sometimes those stories are mostly true and sometimes they’re not true at all. But however you slice it, each of us always has to come out on top. When the facts don’t support that conclusion, it normally means the story has to change to fit the desired outcome. Uh, a child loses at a game of pingpong. Rather than admitting his skills need improvement, he claims he wasn’t really trying or that the sun was in his eyes. That way he can avoid dealing with the truth.”
“But that is a lie.”
Jack laughed. “Get used to it. Lies probably account for the vast majority of human behavior. In this case, lying is a tool humans use to maintain their hero status. But the point I’m getting at isn’t about lies. It’s about why different is seen as bad. If different were good, then by that logic it would mean something was wrong with the person doing the observing. The truth however is that different isn’t better or worse, it’s just different.”
“That would imply humans spend an inordinate amount of time dwelling on meaningless distinctions.”
“See,” Jack said, nudging her chin. “Now you’re getting it.”
Anna shook her head and smiled. “Dr. Greer, do you think I am the hero in my own story?” The hopeful look on her face was undeniable.
Jack nodded. “Not only in yours, kid, but in mine too.”
“Stay alert,” Stokes called out over the radio. “Inbound hostile heading down the staircase.”
Jack spun around, readying his rifle. Dag, Mia and the remaining Delta operators also braced themselves.
A moment later Stokes swore. “Oh, crap, it isn’t one of those things. It’s Ivan and he looks pretty banged up.”
Chapter 22
Three hours after their encounter in the Washington Metro, Kay, Ollie and Sven took a private plane to Orlando. From there, they would head east toward a safe house on the mainland a few miles from Merritt Island and the Kennedy Space Center. The nukes designed to intercept the incoming alien ship would be launched from two locations. The first was Kennedy. Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was the other. Ollie had informed Kay that a second team of pros had been dispatched to perform a similar mission.
“Don’t you want them to stop that ship?” she asked him as Sven drove them from the airstrip.
“I may be a lot of things, but I’m not suicidal,” he assured her.
“It just seems like a strange policy to sit back and do nothing when we’re being attacked.” As a reporter, she was used to playing devil’s advocate, although in this particular instance, the moral decision on how to respond was nowhere near a hundred percent clear.
“This is not an attack,” he told her with stalwart confidence. “It may have disastrous effects, but I don’t believe they’ve got it in for humanity. I’ve seen certain things this last week that have convinced me nothing about what’s happening is personal.”
“You’re talking about the genetic work Dr. Ward was doing?”
“That’s right. To them we’re merely a crop that went bad.”
She shook her head in disgust. “And that gives them the right to wipe us out?”
“I read in your file that you’re religious,” Ollie said, turning to face her.
Kay nodded and then shook her head. “Well, my father’s a pastor, but I don’t share all of his views.”
“I’ll bet you heard quite a few of those views growing up though, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” she replied, frowning. “What does that have to do―”
“With what I’m talking about? In all that time your dad spouted off passages from the Bible, did you ever hear him complain once about God’s wrath?”
“What do you mean?”
“Take the flood, for example. God decided man wasn’t worthy and snuffed out the lot of them.”
“They had sinned,” she began to say in protest, only to realize after how her words were only helping to make his point.
“We’ve been taught that when God gets angry and steps on us, it’s because we musta done something to deserve it. That’s what some folks believe. And far from trying to question it, I’m merely pointing out that it has always been assumed that God had the moral right to destroy mankind and start fresh if he wasn’t satisfied with the way we were acting. I’ve seen a few sermons in my time. Australians are just as nuts for the Bible as you Yanks are. But in all that time, I never once heard a single person raise a stink over the extinctions driven by God’s wrath. So why is everyone raising a stink now? Hey, I’m not in a hurry to die, believe me, but at least with an impact we have a chance. If those Sentinel bastards manage to blow that thing up, don’t think whoever sent it won’t launch a thousand more to take its place.”
“You sound like the ultimate pragmatist,” Kay replied, chewing over what Ollie had just told her.
“If a bigger, stronger man’s about to punch you in the face and you don’t have time to duck, what do you do? Try to kick him in the balls and really piss him off or take that punch as best you can?”
Kay regarded Ollie, studying the heavy lines of age and experience that contoured his face. “You’re saying we’re in a lose-lose situation.”
“I’m saying it could be worse than that. Imagine we’ve read it all wrong and they aren’t here to fry us. Let’s say the ship zooming through space is really part of a delegation aimed at welcoming us. I don’t believe it, but for the sake of this conversation, let’s just pretend. So here they come, a hand extended, and we blow the crap out of them.”
Kay nodded. “I see your point.”
“You might think, hey, I’d rather take my chances and attack them first. But that’s the insidious part of the whole affair. You wouldn’t just be throwing your own life away, you’d be dooming the entire species. I don’t want that sort of burden hanging over me.”
Kay turned away after that. She didn’t want to talk about fiery apocalypses nor about deciding the fate of humanity. The truth was she just wanted her family back, even if only for a day or so before the world went to hell in a handbasket. Growing up, Kay’s father had been taught the traditional Rwandan stories of Imana, the Creator. While he ruled over life and death, he generally did not meddle in human affairs. When the colonial powers arrived in the late nineteenth century, they had brought with them a new form of government along with a new God. This was the one Ollie had been talking about, the sort that seemed to be filled with rage in the Old Testament just as he was filled with love in the New. If Ollie was right about the beings traveling through space toward them, Kay couldn’t help but wonder which kind of God they would be.
•••
Not long after, they pulled into the driveway of a pink bungalow on Sisson Road. The garage door opened and Sven drove the car in and killed the engine. They got out as the door began closing behind them.
“She ain’t much,” Ollie said, getting out and stretching his legs as he motioned to their humble surroundings. “But she’ll do for now.”
A tall, thin man wearing green cammies swung open the door from the house. He had the thick accent of a man born and bred in the Florida Everglades.
“I didn’t expect y’all so soon,” he said, greeting Sven with a slap of their palms followed by a hug. “Whoa, easy, big fella. I need that spine.”
Sven chuckled and moved past him and into the cool air-conditioned house.
“Patrick, this is Kay,” Ollie said, introducing them.
She smiled, doing her best to hide her weariness.
“You’re the reporter lady,” Patrick said. “Yeah, I heard about you. Haven’t had the chance to read one of your articles though, but I intend to.”
“They closed her paper, you turd,” Ollie said, embracing him before moving on.
Patrick scrunched up his mouth. “Bummer. Hey, let me grab your bag. Come on inside, I got the AC on full blast.”
Kay handed him her laptop bag, which was all she really had. Ever since discovering the D.C. cops were after her, she had resigned herself to the idea of wearing the same outfit forever. She followed Patrick inside. The house bore a striking resemblance to every other suburban home that had ever existed and Kay guessed that had been part of the point. He led her through the kitchen where pictures of young kids and finger paintings hung from fruit-shaped magnets. On the counter was a framed image of Patrick with a woman who stood at least a foot and a half shorter than he was.
“Don’t worry about all the fluff. Most of it’s for show. I’m the housekeeper.”
Kay glanced over and saw dishes piled in the sink. “You’re not doing a very good job.”
Patrick laughed. “Not that kind. I manage this safe house. I won’t lie, it was lonely until I got myself a fake wife.” He pointed at the picture Kay had seen of him and the woman. “I’m not exactly her type, if you know what I mean, but that may be ’cause I’m not a woman.”
The furniture in the living room had been pushed against the wall to make room for a large desk filled with computer monitors. The woman from the picture was sitting before them clicking away.
“Oh, hell, darling, you’re not playing that damn game again, are you?” Patrick said, setting Kay’s laptop bag on the couch.
“Don’t bother me,” she barked. “I’m about to level.”
“She’s a sweetheart, ain’t she?” Patrick said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at her.
Ollie emerged from a nearby washroom, drying his hands. “I see you’ve met everyone.”
Kay cocked her head to one side and motioned to the figure perched intently before the bank of monitors, swearing at digital goblins. “Uh, not everyone.”
“Hell, yeah!” The woman screamed with joy as the screen lit up with an explosion of stars.
Kay assumed she’d just leveled, whatever that meant.
Ollie went over and put an arm around the computer nerd as she rose from her chair. “Kay, I’d like you to meet Armoni.”
Extinction Series (The Complete Collection) Page 62