The buildings were…odd. They didn’t look as if they’d been built, but grown, moulded together like molten plastic. The proportions were all wrong, making her head spin when she looked at them. There was a subtle feel around the entire complex that reminded her – as if she’d needed reminding – that she was standing in an alien-built complex, not a human building or POW camp the aliens had taken over. She wouldn’t have wanted to live in the city permanently. Just looking at some of the buildings was giving her a headache. They seemed normal until she looked closer and realised the truth. They seemed to defy the law of common sense.
And there were thousands of aliens! She hadn’t believed, not really, that the aliens came as colonisers until she saw the city. They seemed so…natural there, their unbelievable nature fitting in perfectly with the impossible city. Leaders, Workers, Warriors…and types she didn’t know, types that seemed new and exotic, thronged through the city, some of them glancing at the human captives before moving on. Dozens of smaller aliens, smaller even than the Workers, seemed more inclined to be curious than the others, but the Leader they were following made a curious set of sounds and the aliens departed. It was impossible to be sure, but were they alien children?
Her head was spinning by the time they reached a smaller building that looked like a melted piece of Lego. The escorting aliens urged them inside without hesitation, into another room. This one was more…human-compatible, but it still sent shivers down her spine when she looked closely at it. The weirdest building that any human culture had ever produced was practically part of her hometown compared to the alien building. It was just odd. It was so odd that she didn’t realise that there were dozens of other aliens looking down at them until they started to move.
“You,” one of the women said, finding her voice. It was so hard to think that part of Dolly’s mind was wondering if they’d been covertly drugged. “What do you want with us?”
The Leader turned his great head to look at her, forcing her to twist her head to avoid his gaze. “You will cooperate with us,” he informed them all. “It is for your own good.”
“Why?” The woman demanded. “How is kidnapping us for our own good?”
There was no answer. The smaller aliens were suddenly all around them, their hands somehow slicing through their clothes and sending them falling in tatters to the ground. Dolly flinched at being stripped naked, and then one of the aliens grasped her hands and removed her bonds. She was so relieved that she could almost have kissed the ugly little creature, yet she could feel the gaze of the other aliens on her body. She lifted her hands – noting the bruises on her wrists with a moment of dismay – and covered herself as best as she could.
“Please do not fear,” the Leader said. It sounded terrifyingly sincere. Dolly distrusted the statement on principle. The aliens had had years to learn how to manipulate humans. “We mean you no harm.”
Dolly found herself shivering, despite the warm air. They’d all been broken. Any hope of mass resistance had been lost along with their clothes. She crossed her hands over her breasts and struck a defiant pose, but the aliens – damn them – didn’t seem to even notice. One of the smaller aliens poked her and pushed her forward into another room, one that looked as if it was intended to serve as a prison. A moment later, soapy warm water gushed down from above and washed her body, cleaning away all the dirt and grime. She could have sighed with relief, even though she suspected that it was a preliminary to other humiliations. At least they weren't going to be handed over to the Arabs.
She looked over at the other women and saw their reactions. Most of them were scared stiff; others looked as if they were on the verge of collapse. The woman the alien had hypnotised still looked as if she were completely out of it, obeying orders as if she were nothing more than a robot. The prospect was terrifying. Was that, she wondered, what the aliens had in mind for all of humanity? They’d all been stripped naked to break them and prepare them for…what? None of the possibilities seemed good.
“You will follow the blue light to the next room,” a voice said. It seemed to come out of nowhere. “You will follow the blue light to the next room.”
“I heard,” Dolly muttered, as she looked up. A single blue light was shining in front of her. It reminded her of a little fairy from an animated cartoon. “I’m coming.”
She followed the light into the next room, where she was hit with a blast of hot air that seemed to come from all around her. She squeaked aloud as it played over her nipples and between her legs, before it cut off, leaving her body warm and dry. The blue light glinted in front of her and she followed it, only dimly aware that none of the other women had followed her. The alien complex was like a maze, only worse. The walls became doors and then became walls again at the slightest opportunity. She realised that they’d been tricked into separating from each other…not that they’d ever had a choice. If the aliens wanted the women separated from each other, all they had to do was make it happen. The prisoners couldn’t hope to escape.
Dolly looked down at her wrists and blinked. Her hands had been bound for at least an hour, yet the bruises had already faded away. There was a dull ache, but little else, not even a stab of pain. What had they done to her already? Had the water contained something to speed up the healing process? She stopped and examined her legs where she’d been bruised by the Arabs and found nothing. The marks had faded completely away.
The light bobbled impatiently and she followed it into the next room, suppressing the absurd desire to apologise to it. The next room was brightly lit, with four aliens standing around a table, waiting for her. She realised at once what they intended to do and shrank back, causing one of them to beckon her over impatiently. She looked behind her, but the door was already gone, melded back into the wall. There was no escape. She looked back at the aliens and saw…nothing. No concern, no anticipation…there wasn't even polite interest. She was nothing to them.
All right, she told herself. It’s an examination. You’ve had them before. You can handle it.
Carefully, she stepped forward and climbed onto the table. The aliens leaned over her, their eyes running coolly and dispassionately over every part of her body. She kept reminding herself that they were aliens and they wouldn’t be interested in her, even though her mind kept reminding her of the incident four years ago with the gynaecologist who’d abused two of the girls she’d known as a kid. Alien hands touched her head, turning it this way and that, before moving on to the rest of her body. She flinched as cold hands moved over her breasts, poking and prodding at them, before moving further down. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t quite dare. How would the aliens react…?
Oddly, it was easier to tolerate because they were alien. Their touch felt odd, but it didn’t make her flinch as badly as if it were another human touching her. They seemed to spend more time examining her vagina than anywhere else, yet they didn’t hurt her at all, even when they brought up something and inserted it inside her. She found herself going slack, unable to move, as they produced scanners and ran them over her body. One of them spent hours – or so it felt – studying an old injury on her arm, where she’d fallen off a bike and broken it as a kid. The alien seemed to find it fascinating.
“You are healthy,” one of the aliens said, finally. “The limited damage that your body has suffered can be repaired easily. We will perform the required procedures at once.”
Dolly found herself able to speak again. “And then what?” She demanded. “What are you going to do with me?”
There was no answer.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Virginia, USA
Day 170
Nicolas crouched behind a car and waited as the sentry completed his circuit of the building. The Order Police hadn’t had any real trouble in this town so far, although that was about to change – and would have changed sooner, if the townspeople had known which particular Order Police unit had been billeted on them. Nicolas and his team had been tracking them for
days now, after they’d committed the war’s first major atrocity. He wanted payback and he wanted it bad!
The team had argued about it for hours, so loudly that he’d feared that they’d be heard by the aliens or their human collaborators, bringing them down on their heads. Some had argued that they had caused the atrocity by attacking the aliens; others had called for committing a few atrocities of their own, whatever the cost. Nicolas had been caught in the middle, knowing that it could shatter the team’s unity, and he'd finally ruled that they’d hunt down the Order Policemen who’d carried out the attack, but they’d try to avoid committing any atrocities of their own. Not everyone had agreed and several had left the group to fade back into the general population, yet enough had remained with him to allow the war to go on. It wouldn’t be long before they’d get their chance to bleed the enemy.
His goggles tracked the sentry carefully, noting that the man wasn't wearing night-vision goggles of his own. As far as they could tell, the aliens hadn’t given the Order Police much in the way of night-vision gear, but it was possible that they’d scattered sensors around that put the CIA’s latest designs to shame. If that were the case, then they’d be being tracked right now, with an alien QRT already on the way. The Order Police unit might have been stuck outside as bait, luring the resistance into a trap. Nicolas had considered it for hours before deciding that they couldn’t afford to pass up on the chance to exact revenge – and administer justice. They couldn’t allow the opportunity to slip away.
A handful of locals who had joined the Order Police had reported that the unit was supposed to be garrisoning the town, but it hadn’t been too active, not since committing the atrocity, weeks ago. It might have been scared – the sheer number of blood-curdling threats directed against them was something to see – or they might have been getting as drunk as possible in a ‘safe’ area. Most of the Order Police were amateurs, as far as any trained soldier was concerned; they didn’t even know enough to vary their patrol times. Nicolas could have taken an entire infantry company through the gaps in their defences and they wouldn’t have been any the wiser.
All right, you bastard, he thought, as the sentry came round again, regular as clockwork. It’s payback time.
He’d honed his skill against some of the most fearsome operators in the world. Moving silently was hardly a problem. The guard was actually listening to music and had absolutely no clue that there was anyone behind him. Nicolas caught him, covered his mouth with one hand, and rammed a knife into his back with the other. The blade had been coated with a nasty and very fast-acting poison, but it was hardly necessary. The Order Policeman stiffened against him and tried to break free, yet it was already too late. He collapsed silently against Nicolas’s body and he lowered him to the ground. Nicolas crouched over him and searched him quickly, removing a pair of ID cards, a device of unknown purpose and a wallet. It was bulging with the new dollars that the provisional government had been pumping out over the last few weeks, declaring them legal tender all over the United States. No one would take them unless they had no choice. The inflation rate was already too high.
Nicolas glanced back into the darkness and held up a hand. The other three members of the team were watching him through night-vision gear of their own; they moved forward and were with him in a second. Nicolas had already planned their entrance and nodded towards a window, allowing Brian and Neddy to start silently working it open and allow them to slip inside the old school. The Order Police couldn’t have forgotten to secure the entrances – they couldn’t be that incompetent – and so he had no intention of doing the obvious thing. The course in covert entry – what everyone else called Practical Burglary – was coming in handy. And to think he’d thought it was a waste of time at the time!
The inside of the school was dead and cold. Hardly any schools were open in America now, although the provisional government kept promising that they’d reopen as soon as the new unified curriculum was worked out and teachers were trained to the right standards. Nicolas knew what that meant; the teachers would be taught to brainwash the kids, and any who refused to play along would be sent to a re-education camp. It was the nightmare that had gripped dozens of countries during the Cold War and afterwards, a nightmare that even America hadn’t been entirely able to avoid. He remembered a teacher who’d considered that all males had to pay for their ancestors’ crimes against females and graded accordingly. She’d been untouchable. No one had been able to fire her, despite countless complaints. In the end, she’d found herself a comfy post at one of the weirder colleges and vanished.
He listened carefully for the sound of footsteps, but all he could hear was music being played at a shockingly high level. The thought made him smile. They really weren't trying to take precautions, were they? He even recognised the heavy metal singer, remembering a time when they’d flown into combat to the strains of Kill Them All by Dennis and the Din-Makers. It reminded him of a time before the aliens and he felt an odd lump in his throat. Glancing back at his team, he realised that they felt the same way too. Life had been good once…and few of them had appreciated it. They hadn’t known how bad life was going to become.
“On three,” he signalled. “One…two…three!”
***
Jason Pickering was drunk. He’d been in a state of near-permanent drunkenness for the last ten days, drinking endless bottles of beer, wine, and home-brewed liquor that should have been poured back into the horse. He knew he was drunk and he didn’t care. The next crate of bottles were singing to him, calling for him to stagger to his feet and start drinking his way through them. Why not? It kept the ghosts away.
The Walking Dead man who’d ordered the slaughter and mass rapes had been promoted – insofar as promotion mattered anything to the Walking Dead – but the remainder of the Order Police had proved to be something of an embarrassment. They’d been transferred to yet another town with orders to shape up or else, but Jason no longer cared. The others felt the same way too, apart from four of the men who’d been transferred after admitting that they’d enjoyed themselves. Jason saw the faces of the men and boys he’d killed – and the women he’d raped – every time he closed his eyes. They haunted his nightmares, tormenting him, reminding him that whatever high ideals he’d had when he’d joined the Order Police, he was forever tainted by what he’d done. He’d committed murder. He hadn’t killed a man who was trying to kill him, he hadn’t accidentally shot someone in training, but he'd cold-bloodily fired into a crowd and killed…how many? The official figures felt way too low. He thought that he’d killed thousands upon thousands of men.
And then there had been the women. He tried to tell himself that there had been no choice, but the truth was that he could have killed the Walking Dead man and escaped. He’d forced them to the ground, one after the other, and forced his way inside them. Some of the Order Policemen had even taken the children, the little girls…he felt his stomach heave and then he was violently sick, remembering the tiny broken bodies on the ground and the screams of their mothers. Had there ever been a day when he’d been without such a burden on his soul? What had he done?
He thought about the pistol at his belt and how easy it would be to point it at his head and pull the trigger, yet something deterred him from taking that final step. It was a bitter thought, but he was too cowardly to kill himself and face God’s judgement, even though he had never been very religious. He wanted to throw himself on the ground and pray to a God he’d never really believed in for absolution and redemption, but the truth was that he had no hope of either. He hadn’t erred; he’d sinned, sinned so deeply that there was no hope of forgiveness. He wanted to go back to the town and beg forgiveness, yet he could hope for nothing from the survivors, but a quick death. Perhaps it would be for the best.
The bottles were still calling to him and he staggered to his feet, stumbling over to the old MP3 player and smacking it impatiently with his hand. The noise of the music wasn't helping the permanent headache b
etween his temples, but it did help to down out his own thoughts. The next tune blinked up on the screen and he winced. The kindest thing that could be said about it was that it sounded like two cats fighting over a mouse. Naturally, it had been a global hit, before the aliens had invaded and – just incidentally – put a stop to the music companies, as well as pretty much everything else. If there had been other prospects, he told himself, he would never have joined the Order Police.
A black shape appeared beside him and he started to turn, before a fist slammed into his face and knocked him to the ground. He vomited again, unable to control himself, before his attacker rolled him over and secured his hands with duct tape. Jason opened his mouth to try to say something and was rewarded with a slap that left him reeling. He must have blanked out for a second, for the next thing he saw were the other nine men in the building, kneeling beside him with their hands bound behind their backs. They were all prisoners.
***
“Two of them are dead,” Brian said, tightly. “I slapped them around a little too hard.”
“I wanted them alive,” Nicolas snapped back. “We needed to interrogate them first!”
“Fuck you, with the greatest of respect, sir,” Brian said. “You know this isn’t easy!”
Nicolas looked down at the nine Order Policemen. He’d expected more, even with the pair Brian had killed, but it would do for starters. They didn’t look so orderly now that they’d been knocked about and tied up; they looked as if they were on the verge of panic, expecting that they would be killed at any moment. One of them had vomited badly all over himself and two of the others had clearly wet themselves. His nostrils wrinkled as the smell drifted over his nose. It never got any better.
Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot Page 35