“I’m sorry,” he whispered, quietly. “I’m very sorry.”
***
Mannington had never been a very wired town, even during the worst days of the war on terror, but there were a handful of cameras scattered throughout the town. A handful of internet companies had added enough wireless bandwidth to camouflage the presence of the Fairy Dust, but it was still a risk. Pepper had judged that the risk was worthwhile – even the most advanced American counter-surveillance gear had problems detecting the Fairy Dust – but it all hinged on the great unknown. Just how much could the aliens detect? They might miss the Fairy Dust, or they might realise that it meant that there was more to Mannington than met the eye. They might even tear the entire town apart to find the secret bunker – if, of course, they deduced its existence.
The Fairy Dust, like so many other ideas, had appeared in a science-fiction novel and had then become reality, thanks to the black budget and the NSA. They consisted of hundreds of tiny sensors scattered around, using the wireless internet field to camouflage their own transmissions back to the bunker. They were the ultimate surveillance device, classified to prevent terrorists from discovering their existence and developing countermeasures, allowing her to watch most of what happened in Mannington. She’d watched as houses were broken into, searched, and a handful of items removed without permission. A small pile of guns, ranging from a blunderbuss that looked old enough to have taken part in the War of 1812 to a hunting rifle, had been seized and dumped in one of the trucks. They hadn’t located any of the weapons dumps scattered around the town, but if they chose to be angry…
They’d let the majority of the population go after registering them, although they had arrested a handful of young men who had turned out to be soldiers. Two of the Order Policemen had been knocked down before the prisoners had been subdued and loaded into the trucks, along with a girlfriend who refused to be separated from her lover. It was a grand romantic gesture that could cost her everything, but she refused to abandon her boyfriend. She was bound and loaded into the truck behind him. It was an object lesson in the new world order.
“Bastards,” the President hissed, from behind her. She sensed his guilt at remaining safe while the town was searched and looted. If the Sheriff had breathed a word to the alien collaborators, they would have dug up the bunker and captured the President. Instead, they had no idea how close they’d come to proving themselves to their new masters. “What are they doing now?”
Pepper shrugged, switching from view to view. If it had been entirely up to her, she would have scattered much more Fairy Dust around, along with more obvious cameras and surveillance systems, but the Sheriff had flatly refused to cooperate any further. The last thing they needed, he pointed out, was a resentful population. The grand anti-terrorist database, compiled by successive governmental agencies, had been controversial from the start and eventually disbanded under pressure from the ACLU, no matter how useful it had been. Pepper was in two minds about it. She needed the system to do her job and at the same time, she was uncomfortable with the concept of the government spying on anyone – everyone – whenever it saw fit to do so. The old saying that a person with nothing to hide would be comfortable with being watched was nonsense. Even perfectly innocent people acted oddly when they knew they were being watched. Besides, tipping them off that there was something worth guarding in Mannington could have had disastrous consequences.
She watched as the Order Police finally loaded up their trucks and drove out of town. “They’re gone,” she said. She switched to a piece of Fairy Dust she’d emplaced down the road. “They’re on their way to the next target.”
“I see,” the President said. He’d gone back to his computer. “Look at this.”
Pepper leaned over to his screen and read over his shoulder. It was a message from Karen, deep inside Washington. “They’re planning to bring in…who?”
“And use them to sweep out Chicago,” the President said. Pepper followed the awful logic of it and shuddered inwardly. The aliens had clearly decided to turn Chicago into an object lesson for everyone else. “Send a message to the resistance coordinators at once. This threat has got to be countered.”
Pepper asked the obvious question. “But how?”
Chapter Seventeen
Virginia, USA
Day 127
Ian Douglas looked around the outside of the camp nervously. He couldn’t understand why the Walking Dead man in command of the small force hadn’t allowed them to sleep in a hotel, or perhaps billet themselves on a local farmer or shopkeeper. The Order Police might not be popular – the stares they’d had from the locals more than proved that – but they were necessary. He kept telling himself that. It saved him from wondering if he was on the wrong side.
He’d marched in support of a peaceful contact with the aliens when SETI had first picked up the approaching mothership, only to see the military-industry complex provoke a war with the aliens. It had all been explained by one of his professors at his college. The arrival of aliens would change the world and those who profited from having the world stay the same had good reason to start a war. Ian had believed every word implicitly. The world would be a great deal better if everyone was more understanding and fewer American boys and girls were sent overseas to invade harmless nations and kill hundreds of civilians. They weren't part of the problem. They were part of the solution. Ian, who had never left America or even spent much time outside the cities, believed his professor’s words completely. The world needed saving from itself.
An owl – or so he thought – hooted mournfully in the distance. He didn’t like the countryside; it was so quiet. An eerie silence had descended over all of America with the grounding of almost all the civilian aircraft fleet, although he’d been told that it wouldn’t be long until jumbo jets and smaller aircraft were pressed back into service. The survivors of the military-industry complex wouldn’t be able to prevent the rebirth of America as a nation and the restructuring of the entire world. The aliens had brought the keys to paradise.
He’d known that as soon as he’d seen the food and medical stations they’d constructed. The food might have been bland and tasteless, but it was free, free to all comers without any discrimination. Ian’s father had groaned endlessly about the cost of putting four children through college in training for jobs none of them wanted, yet they’d always had food on the table. Others hadn’t been so lucky. The young Ian had looked at how unlucky others had been and wondered why the food distribution system was so unfair. His professor had been keen to supply the answers. The aliens, if they fed the world’s teeming poor, would have plenty of allies. And that didn’t even touch on the medical centres…
It was so unfair that people who couldn’t afford the treatment they needed had to suffer. Ian had never had a serious illness in his life – he’d broken his arm once by falling off a bike – but others hadn’t been lucky. He’d watched as illnesses human science couldn’t cure had been defeated one by one, or injuries that would have meant months in a plaster cast had been healed almost overnight. The aliens had healed the sick and taught the blind how to see. They were an unmixed blessing to the entire human race. He’d joined the Order Police with that in mind. Sure, there were a few holdouts and insurgents who believed that the aliens came in the spirit of war and hostility, but they’d learn better soon enough. When their children could grow up in a world free of want or suffering, they’d change their minds. Ian clung to that thought. How else could he justify his own actions?
He glanced around the lamps that lit up the camp and shivered, even in the warm air. No one argued with the Walking Dead, despite grumbling from some of the newer policemen, and they were all trying to get what sleep they could on the hard ground. Physical discomfort didn’t seem to bother the Walking Dead, but it did bother young men who had never had to live out in the countryside in their entire lives. A handful had admitted to being Boy Scouts when they’d been younger and had taught the others useful
skills – like putting up a tent – yet Ian and the others wondered why they couldn’t use a house. There had to be a reason, but what?
The trucks seemed to glimmer slightly in the flickering light. There were a handful of prisoners in the vehicles, a pair of men with hunting rifles who’d taken shots at the convoy and four girls who had been making rude faces at the Order Police when they’d been grabbed and hauled into the trucks. Ian was silently grateful that the Walking Dead supervisor had ordered the girls to remain unmolested. Some of the Order Police had been licking their lips at the thought of having fun with the prisoners before they were moved, along with the other reactionaries, to one of the detention centres. Ian hoped that it would stay that way. He didn’t want to even think about violating a woman against her will. What would his professor have said?
He paced over to the truck and glanced inside. Two pairs of very scared eyes looked back at him and he looked away, overcome by a feeling he couldn’t recognise. He thought about undoing the girls’ handcuffs and allowing them to slip away, but his comrades would know who to blame and he’d find himself in a detention centre or one of the Walking Dead. He told himself, over and over again, that it was only a temporary measure and it would all be over soon, yet coming face to face with the consequences shocked him. The future wasn't going to be easy.
Something moved behind him. He started to turn, but it was already too late. A strong pair of arms grasped him and held a cloth to his mouth. He couldn’t help breathing in some of the fumes and the world started to spin around him. A moment later, he fell into darkness, barely aware of his attacker lowering him gently to the ground. He was out before he touched the earth.
***
Nicolas held the Order Policeman until he was sure that the man – no, the boy – was entirely out of it, and then he let him go. The resistance team had scouted out the entire camp carefully, unable to quite believe their eyes. The camp had barely been secured and that meant that the person in charge was either an idiot, or trying to be clever and lay a trap. A SEAL who established such an insecure camp would probably end up being laughed off the force, assuming that his comrades didn’t shoot him themselves for endangering their lives. No SEAL would have created such an insecure base. He couldn’t think of any reputable Special Forces unit that would have risked their men’s lives in such a manner.
He held his pistol in one hand, waiting to see if any of the sleeping Order Policemen would get up, or start screaming for help. The silencer wouldn’t be as effective as they were in the movies and if he had to start shooting, the entire camp would come awake. Nicolas had no objection to killing them outright, but he wanted to send a message to the Order Police and their superiors. Killing them all wouldn’t make any real difference – there were plenty more out there where they came from – but humiliation…the aliens would have to react harshly to their own people. He reached into his pocket and brought out a cigarette lighter, flicking it on and holding it up in the air. A moment later, the resistance group came out of hiding.
It would have shocked the Order Policemen to know just how closely they’d been tailed. Nicolas had left a recon post near Mannington, prepared to intervene if the real secret of the town was threatened, and they’d watched as the Order Police left with their loot. They’d spent the last hour slipping close enough to the camp to overrun it within seconds of the order being given, yet they’d been slowed by quiet nagging doubts. No one, he’d thought, could be so stupid to camp out in the open with only one guard. It had to be a trap, but the more he’d studied the position, the clearer it had become that it was a golden opportunity to hit the enemy. The resistance men had their orders. There was no time to waste.
Nicolas himself tackled the Walking Dead man. No one had been able to identify him, but logically he would have been a policeman, perhaps even a soldier, who had been converted to the enemy’s point of view. Whatever he had been, he wasn't any longer – Nicolas knew better than to give him any chance at all to escape or summon help. The aliens had turned the Walking Dead into fanatics with even less concern for their lives than suicide bombers had shown back in Iraq, or Palestine. They had been able to deter suicide bombers with strikes against their families and supporting elements, but the Walking Dead wouldn’t care if their entire families were wiped out. They were no longer really human. Nicolas landed on top of him, tore away the blanket and snatched the pistol under the makeshift pillow before his target could grab it and start shooting. The Walking Dead man opened his mouth to shout orders and Nicolas ground his head into the dirt. He struggled, but it was already too late. Nicolas caught his hands, wrapped them behind his back – the man didn’t even scream in pain, even though it must have hurt – and secured them with a plastic tie.
“Stay still,” he snapped. The Walking Dead man ignored him and kept struggling, as if he couldn’t feel the pain. Perhaps he couldn’t. Nicolas had been taught techniques for dampening out pain for short periods and if the aliens could rewire entire sections of the human brain, perhaps they could restrict the pain centres as well. He produced a cloth from his belt and stuffed it into the Walking Dead man’s mouth. His angry gasps and bellows were replaced by stifled sounds. Nicolas pulled a second plastic tie from his belt and secured the man’s legs as well. Normally, anyone who had been tied would have enough sense to lie still. The alien slaves didn’t have that option. “I said, stay still!”
He pulled himself to his feet and glanced around. There had been twenty-one collaborators in the ground and twenty of them had been grabbed and tied before they could offer any resistance. The unfortunate watchman had breathed in enough of the fumes to remain out of it for at least another hour, but at a wave of his hand, one of the liberated Marines moved to secure him anyway. The dazed Order Policemen were staring around, stunned at the sudden change in their fortunes, unable to even think of resisting. The resistance took no chances and searched them roughly, removing everything from weapons to personal items. Nicolas was amused to discover that they didn’t have dog tags, merely ID Cards. The aliens probably hadn’t considered the need for such systems – at least, not yet. On the other hand, they were trying to build up a national security state from scratch. They’d probably get round to it sooner or later.
“Get the prisoners out of the trucks and out of here,” he ordered, curtly. A pair of soldiers nodded and slipped into the trucks, returning a moment later with a pair of older men and several girls. The girls looked stunned – they’d been handcuffed to the truck – yet very relieved. The men just looked angry, as if they wanted to fall on the Order Policemen and cut them up into tiny pieces. Their escorts would get them all out of the area and up to one of the hidden bases. There, they’d have to make a decision about their futures.
He glanced inside the remaining trucks and motioned for every piece of alien technology to be pulled out and transported to a different rendezvous point. Back in Iraq and Afghanistan, some pieces of technology the Americans had given to the local soldiers had included locator beacons, just in case the locals decided to sell them to the insurgents. The aliens would probably be a great deal more paranoid about any of their technology falling into the hands of the local resistance. Even if America's scientific base had been destroyed, there were other countries out there. Shipping the gadgets to Britain would be tricky, but it could be done. He kept a sharp eye out for Greg and Nancy, but didn’t see either of them. Nancy’s cover remained intact.
Or maybe they just don’t care, he reminded himself. It was easy to think of himself as pretty damn good, an attitude that was encouraged among men who routinely went behind enemy lines and operated without massive air and ground forces in support. The aliens might not know or care who he was, or who Nancy was, although that might change. If they were building up a database of everyone in America, they’d eventually be able to identify families with links to the resistance and start targeting them specifically. The aliens were probably great believers in the application of violence to solve their problems.
He smiled inwardly – he was probably the first man to be relieved that someone thought that his former wife had been cheating on him – and walked back towards the Walking Dead man. Someone had injected him with a sedative and left him lying there. The other prisoners were too cowed to offer serious resistance.
“Get him out of here,” he ordered four of his men. He’d detailed them for a specific – and very dangerous – task. They’d take the Walking Dead man to an abandoned barn that had been taken over by the resistance, and then see if the aliens tracked him down. If they didn’t, they’d move him to an underground clinic – designed to help rebuild the country in the event of a nuclear war – and see if they could undo whatever the aliens had done to him. They trusted their Walking Dead implicitly. If the resistance could get a trusted man deep inside the alien system, all kinds of interesting possibilities would be opened up for exploitation. He felt a moment of pity for the Walking Dead. They hadn’t chosen to collaborate with the aliens.
He looked down at the real collaborators and saw them flinch back from his gaze. “Listen very carefully,” he said, in a quietly menacing tone he’d picked up from a Drill Sergeant back when he’d been a mere recruit. “You have chosen to bear arms against the United States in a time of war. You’re nothing better than goddamned traitors. I am perfectly within my rights to execute each and every one of you, so don’t piss me off.”
“You can’t do this,” one of the collaborators protested. He sounded half-scared, half-confident. Hadn’t he noticed that the world had changed? “We have rights!”
Nicolas nodded to the nearest soldier, who leaned forward and cut the collaborator’s throat. He heard several of the other collaborators being nosily sick as their former comrade’s blood gushed out, staining the ground. They’d probably never seen anyone butcher a hog before, or any real violence at all. He’d seen far too many like them, young men who pretended to be streetwise and walked around pretending to be gangsters. They always folded when faced with a real challenge.
Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot Page 16