“Don’t kill me,” he begs, confirming the Others have retreated from his mind now that his body is useless.
With a thought, the nanites connect to the car’s electronics once more and pull it back. The marshal drops to the pavement, out of commission, but not completely. Before he sees it coming, I give him a good whack with my shotgun’s stock, knocking him unconscious.
When I reenter the warehouse, I’m surprised to see Harry’s son climbing back to his feet. His shotgun is just a few steps away. I pump a fresh shell to let him know he’s out of options.
His hands inch up as he swivels around to face me, his face an emotionless mask. “You are remade.”
“I can arrange the same for you.” I aim the weapon at his face, but know the speaker won’t be threatened. The young man is currently a Trancer, at the mercy of the Others controlling his mind. That doesn’t make him innocent, though. Harry and his family might have inherited their agreement with the Others, but they’ve maintained it. They’re slave traffickers, and if he makes a move, of his own free will or not, he’ll finish it without a head.
How far away are they? I wonder. Are they doing this from Dulce? Are there UFOs and Grays stashed in the mesas nearby?
“Release the children.”
“Not going to happen.”
I feel a familiar tickle in my head. It’s usually followed by discomfort and a voice in my head. This time, it ends as fast as it begins. I smile at the cryptoterrestrial watching me through the man’s eyes, trying to emote more confidence than I feel.
The man looks confused for a moment, and then flashes a smile of his own, revealing that the Others aren’t as stoic and emotionless as the Grays and mind-controlled people suggest. They’re creatures of emotion, which makes them both dangerously unpredictable, but also capable of being manipulated.
They’re not gods, I remind myself. They might be technologically advanced and ancient, but they’re not infallible.
“He’s dead,” the man says, almost giddy. “The escapee. After so many years, he is gone.” The smile becomes wicked. “Because of you.”
I pull the trigger.
It was probably a mistake. He was an unarmed man. But he was desecrating sacred ground. My relationship with Lindo was founded on a bedrock of lies, but in the end, his intentions were noble and he gave his life in defense of ours, and those I hope to rescue. He died my friend.
“Holy shit…”
I turn to find Young staring up at me, eyes wide, holding a bright pink camouflage bandanna over Wini’s wounds.
“You murdered that man,” Young says.
My eyes drift to Wini’s. There’s a dose of shock in them, too, but no judgment.
“Lindo?” she asks.
When I nod, Young’s disapproval melts away.
Gunfire from the storefront draws my attention. Godin, Randy, and Reg are still putting up a fight, peppering the men outside. From a bird’s eye view, I see two men dead, including Harry. That leaves ten heavily armed combatants, one with a machine gun, which he’s struggling to reload while under fire.
The Others know where I am. Know that the rear door is open. It won’t be long before they send more men this way.
What they don’t know is what I’ll do next.
I step deeper into the store and find the gun I’m looking for lying in a shattered case. I snatch it up, find its ammo in a box behind the counter, and load a single round. Then I confirm that the machine gun is still being reloaded and that the men haven’t left their positions behind the blockade of vehicles.
Outside, the heat assaults me long before I round the warehouse and start making my way toward the front. The sound of gunfire conceals the gentle scuffing of my feet on the rough pavement. Watching from above, I can see that no one has detected my approach or even suspected it.
More proof that the Others are fallible, and not the best military tacticians. Maybe that’s why they have always stayed hidden. For all their technology, their abilities to hide and to control human minds, they lack the instincts required to wage a war and win.
Whatever the reason, I’m pleased to see not a single head looking in my direction.
The machine gunner racks the slide, chambering the first round in a fresh belt of bullets that will finish erasing what’s left of the ‘Guns, Guns, Guns’ painted on the exterior wall. He swivels it around, silencing the assault rifles from within as Godin, Randy, and Reg dive for cover.
But before he can pull the trigger, I step out from behind the warehouse wall, gun already raised and aimed at the large puddle beneath the vehicles. At any moment in time before now, I might have begged God for mercy for what I was about to do. But this is war, and horrible things don’t just happen, they’re necessary.
So I pull the trigger.
The bright pink flare sizzles across the open lot. Most of the men see it coming, and not one of them reacts. They smell the leaking gasoline, of that there’s no doubt. But the Others controlling them either don’t recognize the danger, or couldn’t care less about the ten remaining men losing their lives.
How many more cult members are under their control?
How many are on their way?
Flames whump to life beneath the vehicles, instantly engulfing every man. Screams erupt from the ground as the Others controlling them retreat, perhaps because they can feel the men’s pain, or because they’re focusing on other people.
The screams are silenced when the inferno reaches the breached fuel tanks and explodes. I twist away from the heat and then fall back toward the back door, hoping the Others haven’t taken control of my friends.
“What happened?” Young asks when I step back inside.
Wini’s still seated on the ground, still in pain, but her shirt’s closed up. “Send them all to hell?”
“Wherever people who collaborate against their own species go,” I say. “Yeah.”
She gives a curt nod, but then her eyes go wide. She snatches her shotgun off the ground, raising it in my direction.
The Others have found my weakness.
I can’t shoot Wini.
Can’t even consider it.
So as the weapon comes up, I don’t bother moving. At this range, she can’t miss.
The weapon barks, and my first thought is, I hear that.
By the time the soundwave reached my ears, my head should have been missing for a fraction of a second already.
That’s when I notice the barrel is aimed just past me, toward the door behind me. I see the marshal I spared when I turn around, and when I scan the area from above. I should have been more aware. What good is the ability to watch the world from multiple perspectives if you forget to use it?
“Everyone okay?” Godin shouts, working his way toward us, shoving debris out of his way, still clutching his assault weapon.
“We’re good,” I tell him, now positive that no one from Harry’s crew, or the Colorado City marshals are left alive.
“Well, shit,” Reg says, emerging from the piles of debris with Randy at his side. “That was…” He looks back at his ruined business. “Think my insurance will cover a war?”
I doubt they will, but I don’t voice my fear. Once I get a handle on the nanites, I might be able to reimburse the man’s losses with a thought. Before that, I still need his help.
“Glad you’re okay,” I tell him and pull him aside.
“Sorry about your friend,” Reg says.
I glance to the front corner of the store where Lindo’s body lies. He should be buried, sent off to his long-awaited afterlife with some respect. But there’s no time to deal with the deceased when the living are still at risk.
I haven’t spotted any nearby vehicles incoming, but that doesn’t mean they’re not on the way. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Aeron wasn’t far behind, or even leading the charge. “You have someplace you can take everyone?”
There’s a black, extended-cab pickup parked off to the side of the parking lot, far enough away to b
e undamaged. I’m assuming it’s either Reg’s or Randy’s.
Reg digs into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. Tosses them to Randy. “Fire up the truck, ASAP.”
Randy bolts out the door. I watch him from above, sprinting across the parking lot to the truck.
I lower my voice. “You get them someplace safe, okay? Fast as you can. Off the grid.”
“You’re not coming?” he asks, assuming the same quiet tone.
“Have a few things to take care of,” I say. “Then I’ll catch up with you.”
“You don’t even know where we’re going,” he says.
“I’ll find you,” I say. “But if you don’t hear from me after tomorrow…”
“Sometimes the score settles you,” he says. It’s a strange way to put it, but I know what he’s saying.
Screeching tires announce Randy’s return. Godin helps me get everyone inside the truck. When the vehicle is loaded, Godin offers me the front seat, but I shake my head. He gives me a steely-eyed gaze. Knows what I’m up to.
“Sure about this?” he asks.
“Can’t take her to a hospital,” I say. “Not until this is finished. I want you to tend to her wounds.”
“Not going to say goodbye?” he asks.
“She’d never let me leave,” I say. “And I’m not sure I could if she tried to stop me.”
I tear up when Wini smiles at me from inside the truck. She’s going to hate me for this, but the moment I saw her buckshot wounds, her part in this ended. I can’t put her at risk. Losing Lindo hit me hard. Losing Wini would undo me, and I’ve spent enough of my life wallowing in the tortures of personal loss.
“Godspeed,” Godin says. He climbs into the truck, closes the door, and Reg, in on my subterfuge, hits the gas. At the edge of the parking lot, I catch a trace of Wini’s raised voice, but then it’s drowned out by the big truck’s V8.
I watch their progress from above for a mile, making sure Wini doesn’t try something crazy like jumping out. Then I move ahead, spreading my gaze over the roads and the city beyond. Seeing nothing coming, I return my vision to my own eyes and find the view of my feet blurred by tears.
“Goodbye, Wini.”
39
A perfectly silent self-driving vehicle has its benefits—like running down an unsuspecting Trancer. But when you’re feeling anxious about impending events, concerned about loved ones, and distracted by thoughts of the wife and son that could have been, the monotonous sound of tires on pavement doesn’t do much to settle the nerves.
At some point, the white noise lulls me into a dreamless sleep. From my point of view, it was a blink. But when I pass a ‘Welcome to New Mexico’ sign, I know I’ve missed a good hundred miles of Arizona’s stark and beautiful landscape.
A tall gas station sign triggers my instinct to check the fuel gauge…which I don’t find. I’m not sure where to look, so I ask the car, or rather, have the nanites ask the car. The large LED screen to the right of the steering wheel displays an image of the car, revealing a 30% charge and the number of miles that will take us.
Where can I recharge? I ask.
The screen shifts to a maps app, revealing a course, due east, leading to a Tesla Supercharge station in Farmington, New Mexico.
Take us there, I think, and I realize I’m already starting to think of the nanites as a silent partner. Always listening and obeying, but never replying, which is fine with me. I’ve felt what it’s like to have a foreign voice in my head. I didn’t enjoy it.
I spend the next two hours monitoring the outside world. Rather than having the information and audio play inside my head, I funnel everything through the car, displaying visuals on the screen and audio through the speaker system.
There’s no mention of the shootout at Reg’s gun warehouse. Like the battle at New Zion Ranch, it’s being concealed, despite the involvement of local law enforcement. As a former detective, a cover-up of that scale offends me, but it also benefits me. I’ve checked for the Amber-alert. It never went beyond the local communities, and if I have a run-in with the law in New Mexico for some reason, my record will be clean.
Better than clean, if I want it to be. My knowledge of police databases made working my way through the system a snap. I have free access to my records, and those of anyone else. I suspect I could do the same with the FBI, CIA, DOD, and NSA if I wanted to. I haven’t attempted it yet, on the off chance that I might be detected. After all, Aeron does sell their reverse-engineered tech to the U.S. government. It’s possible they could detect my intrusion and track me down. Or maybe not. Lindo didn’t leave me with instructions.
I’ve avoided altering the records or bank accounts of anyone involved in this mess, though I’m confident I could, just by requesting it. That Lindo kept a low profile and didn’t set himself up as the world’s richest man, or buy himself a country, is impressive. This kind of power would corrupt most people.
I’m probably not going to live long enough to find out if the ability to do anything turns me into a monster.
The stop in Farmington is mostly uneventful. During the seventy-five minute charge, I manage to fall asleep again, the vehicle’s AC—running despite the charge—keeping the heat at bay. This time I dream of Jacob. He’s holding a baby in his arms. When I reach out, Jacob runs away, his feet slapping against a long wooden dock surrounded by swamp water.
I try to shout to him, but I don’t have a voice. My unheard warning has dire consequences as Jacob trips and plunges into the dark water with the child. I dive in after them, but find myself blinded by the water, and unable to swim. I kick and flail, but make no progress.
I wake to find my arms raised over my head, and the vehicle’s display screen suffering from some kind of pixelated seizure. When I calm down, the screen returns to normal. Note to self, falling asleep while connected to anything outside myself can affect the real world.
Weary despite falling asleep twice, I have a sudden hankering for coffee, or rather, the caffeine in it. With two hours left in the drive, a dose of awake juice will help me come up with a plan. I’m about to utilize my mind-numbing new abilities to find the nearest source of coffee when I’m struck by an idea. If the nanites can modify my brain…
Wake me up.
My personal recharge takes just seconds. I’m not sure about which chemical or hormone the nanites just kicked into high gear, but the effects are invigorating. I feel alert. And strong. My thoughts become clear. I’ll never need a cup of coffee again, which is fine by me, because unless it’s got copious amounts of sugar, cream, and some kind of artificial flavoring to boot, it tastes like hot shit, and makes people’s breath smell about the same.
Back on the road, I enjoy the scenery for a few minutes. This portion of New Mexico is nearly as barren as Arizona, but the rock formations and mesas are far paler, and the land is speckled with pine trees. Then I turn my attention to the subject matter at the crux of my journey.
Dulce, New Mexico and the cryptoterrestrial base hidden there.
Scouring the Internet brings up millions of hits, most of them from UFO enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists, and hordes of other fringe thinkers who are closer to the truth than anyone would ever believe.
The consensus as to the base’s location is the Archuleta Mesa, a massive swath of dangerous, steep, mostly inaccessible terrain. A single trail, far too rugged for the Tesla, leads to the top, where several cell towers stand. But no one builds the entrance to a secret base on top of a mountain.
It will be at the base, I decide, or even miles away.
Most conspiracy theories involve a high-speed rail tunnel between Dulce and Los Alamos, the location of the U.S. laboratories most famous for creating the atomic bomb. Given what I know about the Others, this feels closer to the disinformation they use to disguise the truth. A secret base is already on the outer limits of believability. But they do exist. No one doubts that. Seeding details like a hundred-mile-long, underground, high-speed rail along with UFOs, alien abductions,
cattle mutilations, and a bevy of wild-eyed first hand witnesses is enough to make most people roll their eyes and dismiss both ridiculousness and truth.
Except in this case, the truth is equally ridiculous. Just a different kind of ridiculous.
Despite all the information available on the Web, local historical records—none of which refer to the scuffle between the Green Berets and the cryptoterrestrials—and a number of satellite images of the area, I’m no closer to discovering an underground base than the kooks who risk their lives searching for it.
I’m so immersed in research that I nearly miss crossing the border into Dulce. Of course, the ‘Welcome’ sign is a plain green sign simply reading ‘Dulce.’ I realize it’s a sign with a single word, but it has a ‘Yeah, this is Dulce, want to make something of it,’ kind of vibe. The next sign I pass appears to have some kind of Batman logo on it. White text inside the black bat reads, ‘Operation D.W.I.,’ and the red text below reads, ‘Checkpoints everywhere.’
Message received, Dulce.
“We don’t really want you here,” I say, doing my impression of a local, who strangely sounds a bit southern, “but if you’re going to come through town, we’re fucking watching you.”
“Drive safe,” I tell the Tesla and pat the steering wheel. The vehicle slows a few miles per hour, getting a laugh out of me. When I pass a police cruiser parked behind a stand of trees, my momentary dip into a pool of good humor ends with an increased pulse.
I watch the rearview and play local radio chatter through the speaker system. All silent.
I sit a little lower, but not so low I couldn’t drive. No faster way to get the police’s attention than for them to see no one behind the wheel. Feeling a little paranoid, I scan local police systems for my name or photo and come up empty. I’m relieved for a moment until I remember that’s not how the Others operate. Aeron maybe, but the Others wouldn’t want anything on the official record. While the Amber alert hit the local population’s phones, it wasn’t sent by an official source.
The Others Page 24