Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot

by Christopher Nuttall

  Day 101

  General Howery had joined the Dead Men Walking.

  Or, at least, that was how Karen thought of them. There were only about a dozen in Washington, but they seemed to dominate human-alien interactions. They might have started out human, yet they all went through some kind of process at the hands of the aliens and ended up almost inhuman. They seemed normal enough, most of the time, but their eyes were dead and they were supremely loyal to the aliens. General Howery’s record spoke of a loyal soldier and American, yet now he was working openly for the aliens, without even a twinge of conscience to rebuke him at night. Or perhaps he was screaming inside. There were moments when she thought she saw the real man under the cold face, a man trapped in his own body.

  She’d tried to warn him to agree to whatever they wanted, in hopes it would prevent him from being converted into a slave. The thought of an ally in such a high place would have been welcome, yet he’d refused Daisy’s offer and had been mentally conditioned by the aliens. Perhaps they would have conditioned him anyway. They would hardly have let the person charged with raising and commanding battalions of humans operate unsupervised. General Howery was theirs now, body and soul, and if she dared breath a word against them to him, she’d find herself picked up and probably converted as well. And then she’d know just what it felt like to be dead and yet alive.

  The process didn’t always seem to work perfectly. She would have expected the puppet President to have been displayed to the public on every occasion, but instead Jacob Thornton only made brief appearances, explained away under the guise of security. She’d only seen him a few times, but he looked worse than the other Walking Dead, as if he was on the verge of coming apart at the seams. It was possible that the process had permanently damaged his mind and the aliens were trying to conceal it, or perhaps he had been trying to resist and they wanted to enhance their control as much as possible. It wasn't as if the converted were simply parroting the aliens and echoing their commands. They were thinking and working as if they were willing collaborators. Only their eyes betrayed the truth – their eyes, and other tells. Karen had taken a risk and flashed her breasts at one of them. He hadn’t even batted an eyelid…and he had been a politician renowned for his womanising. Under other circumstances, Karen would have found that funny. It had taken alien mind control to convince him to stop thinking of women.

  She gazed over at Daisy, seated at the table, and kept her face carefully blank. The aliens might not be able to read faces, but their loyal slaves sure as hell could…and wouldn’t hesitate to bring their concerns to their new masters if they felt that there was a reason to be concerned. Daisy wasn't one of the Walking Dead. As far as Karen could tell, she and hundreds of other prominent people served the aliens willingly, placing themselves completely at their service. Karen didn’t understand why some people willingly betrayed so much – not just their country, but their entire race – yet it hardly mattered. Daisy’s willing service to the aliens was just another priceless piece of intelligence, if she could get it into the right hands. The problem was that she had no idea how to contact anyone who might be interested.

  The alien was speaking and the humans were listening with rapt attention. “The escape of hundreds of human soldiers is unacceptable,” he said. The aliens seemed at times to pay no attention to their humans, at other times; they exercised very close supervision indeed. There seemed to be no logic to their decisions. “They are to be recaptured as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course, sir,” General Howery said. The hell of it was that Karen knew that he really meant every word. He had no choice, but to mean it. “We need to build up the manpower to track them all down unless you intend to devote more warriors to the task.”

  Karen studied the alien leader with interest. The warriors had been concentrated around the cities, keeping them in lockdown, and the mass alien landings in the more under-populated areas of America. A number had been deployed to captured military bases and suchlike, but they hadn’t been pushed much further away from the remainder of the aliens. She suspected that the aliens were much more inclined to conserve their resources than they implied, which suggested…how many of the one billion aliens were actually warriors? How many of them could fight? She looked over at the smaller workers fussing over their superior and frowned. Could they fight in a pinch? They looked so weak and puny, as if a single glancing blow would crush their skulls, yet it might have been an illusion. She’d seen one of them carrying a massive load through the secure zone housing the collaborators.

  “Warriors are to be reserved for securing the population centres,” Ethos said, finally. The alien voice showed no hint of emotion, no frustration or even amusement. It was hard to tell what the creature was really feeling. “You will deploy human units to secure the area.”

  “They are not ready,” General Howery said, slowly. Karen wondered just how strong the temptation had been to just do what the alien said. It was another worrying aspect to their conditioning. The Walking Dead weren't just obeying the aliens, they were offering their knowledge and experience to their new masters as well. She had no idea what the aliens had done to change their minds – quite literally – but it was powerful, and evil. “We may have a few thousand volunteers in Washington alone, but they are barely marching in step. They will be easy targets for the resistance if we send them out without heavy escort. They need more time to train.”

  Karen nodded inwardly. The resistance might not have launched any mass attacks, apart from the attacks aimed at liberating thousands of prisoners from camps across the nation, but they maintained a constant steady pressure on the occupation forces. Warriors had been sniped at, or targeted with IEDs, or even lured into ambushes and kill zones. The resistance hadn’t scored any big successes inside the cities, yet there were a handful of smaller victories that were costing the aliens, even if they were pinpricks compared to the sheer immensity of alien power. The crashed ship in Washington – no one could miss seeing it, even if the aliens had cordoned it off and refused to allow anyone near – was a permanent reminder that the aliens were not all-powerful. Outside the cities, the story was different. Human collaborators were shot at and killed, while alien patrols found themselves under brief attacks and discovered that their attackers faded away once they mounted counterattacks. Alien transports had been targeted by handheld SAM missiles, although none had been taken down apart from ground-attack craft. The whole situation was slowly spinning out of control.

  She remembered President Chalk’s declaration just before the Fall of Washington, removing all limits on the possession of weapons and repealing all of the gun control laws. There had been a rush on gun stores and literally millions of weapons had been distributed across the nation, in preparation for – she saw now – a ground occupation. The aliens might well have bitten off more than they could chew. Or perhaps it wouldn’t matter in the long run. Iraq had had a nasty insurgency too, fuelled by foreign cash and fighters – and a few bad decisions made by the occupation authorities – and in the end, the United States had won. Iraq had had a few good years as a democratic state before the aliens had invaded. The insurgency had only prolonged the agony. Would the United States go the same way?

  “We’ve been working on building up the governmental systems that were…ah disrupted during the invasion,” Daisy said, into the silence. “The vast majority of bureaucrats are just men and women trying to earn a living and without them, running the country would have been impossible. We caught thousands of them in Washington alone and have been putting them back to work, along with more…reasonable administrations in states and cities. In a few months, we should have a much greater level of control over the country and we can use it to put pressure on the insurgency from that direction. The expanded police force can be used to underline that control.”

  Karen felt sick. She’d realised that Daisy was ambitious when they’d first met properly, just after the alien mothership had been detected, but she hadn’t rea
lised just how ambitious. The aliens had offered her power and she’d accepted, creating the beginnings of a network they’d use – one day – to control the country. Karen could see how it would work, just as it had at SETI. There would be ID Cards, a vastly-expanded police force and firm controls. Anything not permitted would be forbidden. She wondered how long it would be before they started ordering all guns to be handed in, on pain of death, or worse. A little pressure in the right places and the resistance might be broken. Or, what if the aliens managed to work out the bugs in their conversion process? They wouldn’t have to wait for a Judas to come forward – they’d just make one for themselves. The Nazis and the Soviet Union had maintained control without such methods. What could the aliens do if they had them at hand?

  “The small handful of people with real military experience who have volunteered to join the Order Police are untrustworthy,” Howery was saying. Karen realised that her mind had drifted away from the subject at hand. “Some of them, according to their records, were discharged or were regarded as unsuitable for promotion. The ones with good military records may intend to subvert the police from inside. I would advise against forming a specialist unit from them and deploying them without heavy supervision.”

  “We did not expect success within the day,” Ethos informed him. Karen privately considered that a good thing. Howery was looking at the alien as if he was a love-struck child. He would have killed himself if the alien had ordered him to die. “We are patient. The insurgency will not threaten our operations on this planet.”

  Karen hoped that he was wrong. It was hard to get reliable news, even for collaborators, but she’d been able to pick up some outside news from the BBC, which had rapidly transformed itself into an internet media giant. The aliens were dealing with another insurgency in North Africa and the Middle East, one that was both more violent and less effective than the one facing them in America. She hoped that the aliens regarded it as a more serious threat and deployed their forces to match, but somehow she doubted it. Daisy had made it clear that one thing the aliens did want was America’s vast industrial complexes. All the Middle East had was oil.

  “On to other matters,” Daisy said, as if she had heard Karen’s thoughts. “We have secured and repaired most of the damaged utilities systems in the country. The people are no longer in darkness in the cities, nor do they have to worry about water and sanitation. The absence of electricity was certainly fuelling the insurgency and the return to normal life across much of the country will probably help to dampen it. The closure of all of the nuclear power plants has been announced and we expect that it will encourage the acceptance of the new order. Fusion is much cleaner – and free.

  “The workers at the various industrial production complexes have largely returned to work,” she continued. “The Dollar may have fallen in value to almost nothing, but we have been able to offer food and security for their families, as well as other benefits. The process of reshaping the economy to replace the loss of China and other countries as a source of raw material is moving slowly, but we estimate that we will be at eighty percent of pre-war production levels within six months. We should be able to meet your requirements without major trouble.”

  Karen listened with interest, her face betraying nothing of her thoughts. The aliens wanted human factories producing items for them, but what? Their technology was so advanced that it was hard to believe that humans were actually better at something than them, but perhaps…or perhaps they didn’t want to waste time building their own factories when they could use inferior human products. Or perhaps…they might just be doing it for their own inscrutable reasons.

  “And the insurgency?” Ethos asked. “Will they not attempt to disrupt production?”

  “They will discover that attacking the factories and the workers there will make them very unpopular among people who depend on them for a living,” Daisy assured him. Karen heard the self-satisfaction in her tone and felt sick. “They could only do us a favour by attacking humans who are just trying to survive.”

  Howery shrugged. “Can the workers be trusted to behave?”

  “The lives of their families depend on the factories,” Daisy said. “I believe that they will cooperate. It is in their interests to cooperate.”

  On that note, the meeting ended.

  Karen had taken to wandering around Washington outside the secure zone, even though it wasn't particularly safe. The insurgency in Washington had never really gotten off the ground – there were thousands of Warriors swarming around the city, ready and waiting for someone to start something – but there were plenty of desperate men and women out there. It was one of the reasons why the aliens had had so many volunteers for the Order Police. The Warriors might keep down real trouble, but looting, rape and murder was on the rise. The aliens couldn’t be everywhere. This time, however, she had a more specific destination in mind.

  The internet café had survived, somehow, when many other buildings had been destroyed during the war. The owner had managed to keep up the links and remain online, even though the worst of the fighting. Now that the telephone lines and cell phones were down, the internet had rapidly become the main communications system in America. Karen had thought about using one of the computers in the secure zone, but it would have been easy for someone to load a monitoring program onto the computers there that would have tipped off the aliens. The internet café had risks of its own, yet it wouldn’t be so easy for them to identify her if they picked up the message. She pushed open the door and stepped inside, her stomach growling at the scent of hot coffee and cookies. The dollar might have been worthless, but there was always something to trade.

  “So,” the owner said. He was a fat man wearing a shirt that was at least two sizes too small. A shotgun sat prominently on the table, a warning to any would-be looters. Karen was surprised that the aliens hadn’t confiscated it. “What do you have and what can I get for you?”

  There were girls in Washington who were supporting themselves through prostitution, but Karen had other options. “This,” she said, holding up a small can of coffee grains. Without supplies coming in from outside the city, coffee had suddenly become rarer than gold. “And there’s more where that came from.”

  The owner’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you get that?”

  “My boyfriend used to love going on camping holidays,” Karen lied. Actually, she’d liberated it from one of the hotel suites. “He had a stockpile of things like this. I want a month’s free and secure internet time for this.”

  “Two weeks,” the owner said. Karen blinked. The coffee shortage must be worse than she had thought. The thought of depriving Americans of their coffee…the aliens didn’t have the slightest idea what they’d done. “I don’t know about secure though, these days…”

  “It’ll do,” Karen said. The government had started to monitor the internet much more closely after 9/11, leading some hackers to develop software intended to keep prying eyes away, just on principle. A number of court cases had been underway when the aliens landed and put a stop to them. “And privacy.”

  “Over there,” the owner said, pointing to a small cubicle. “Keep your head down.”

  Karen stepped into the cubicle and shook the computer’s mouse, waking it up. The internet had always given the impression of security, but she knew better than to take that for granted, not when the aliens might be watching over her shoulder. It made a chilling kind of sense – they could have left the café alone to see who used it – and it wasn't the only danger. The owner might keep an eye on her himself. She logged on and checked how many email servers were still working. Most of them, she discovered to her surprise, were still online. Only a handful of sites were missing. It was the work of a few moments to create a completely new email account and verify it. It wouldn’t do for purchasing anything online, but it would suffice for sending messages.

  She took a breath. She could still back out, yet she couldn’t. The President had given her his person
al calling card when they’d met, a simple card – like any other business card – with his private contact details. She’d been told that she had to keep it completely to herself. The emails went directly to the President with no one else in the loop. It was a risk – she had no way of knowing if the President was in any position to pick up the email – yet how else could she get a message out? No one, not even a collaborator, was allowed to leave the city without a very good reason.

  The USB stick felt hot in her hand as she inserted it into the computer. The compressed file inside held copies of plenty of Daisy’s files, although she hadn’t been able to copy everything. She attached it to an email – signed it, with a wry smile, Deep Throat – and pushed SEND. There was a moment’s pause, and then the file vanished into the internet. Karen relaxed slightly, struggling to control her heartbeat, and then started to systematically wipe all the evidence of what she’d done. One way or another, the die was cast. She just hoped that someone, somewhere, could make use of what she’d done.

  Chapter Eight

  Area 53, Nevada, USA

  Day 110

  “Now that’s not something anyone wants to see,” Doctor Jane Hatchery said, dryly. “Get it off the screen before I puke.”

  Alex Midgard gave her a droll smile. “There’s nothing good on the television these days,” he said, matching her tone. The image of an alien warrior was unpleasant, but it looked better than many of the people he’d seen on television since the Fall of Washington. “We have to look at the aliens sometime.”

  Jane shrugged. “I’d prefer not to look at them at all,” she said. “I did the research, I did the first dissection of an alien life form…and I still can’t believe that that ugly bastard” – she nodded towards the screen – “is related to the being we have downstairs.”

  Alex said nothing. The human race had captured precisely one alien alive, an alien whose suicide implant had somehow failed to detonate and liquefy his brain. If the aliens knew – or cared – that one of their number was held within a secret American military base, they’d showed no sign of concern. They probably assumed that their prisoner was dead, Alex had concluded long ago; if they’d known that the human race had a prisoner, they would have done everything they could to locate and recover him before the humans could make him talk.