Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot

by Christopher Nuttall

  The frustration welled up within them. “God damn them,” he snapped. “What the hell did we do to deserve it?”

  Nicolas shrugged. “Which answer would you like?” He asked, dryly. “Would you like the answer about America exploiting the rest of the world, keeping the poor as poor as we can because…hey, we’re just that evil? Would you like the answer about how powerful we were on Earth and how we made ourselves the first target for alien invasion, or would you like the answer about sheer random chance?”

  He snorted. “If…oh, I don’t know, Germany had won the Second World War and taken over the entire planet, it wouldn’t have made any difference,” he added. “The mothership would have set out hundreds of years ago, before humans were even on the verge of realising that flies didn’t actually materialise on rubbish heaps. The Germans would have gotten clobbered first instead of us, but what else would have changed? We were just the unlucky ones who got clobbered first. It would have happened anyway.”

  “You know what I mean,” Greg said, tightly. “Why did we deserve to lose our society?”

  “Winner takes all,” Nicolas said. He paused. “You know, they don’t care about us, I mean…not really. They don’t give a shit about you, or me, or even the President…well, maybe they care about our leaders. They don’t give a damn about our personal troubles, or who lives or who dies, or even who won the last football game. They just consider us…disposable resources for their use, which they won by right of conquest. It’s nothing personal. They don’t care enough about us to make it personal.”

  “That is not a cheerful thought,” Greg said. He changed the subject rapidly. “What do you think of the beer?”

  “Beats hell out of the shit I used to buy for a dollar fifty back when I was a teenager,” Nicolas said. “I used to love Coors, but most of the rest should have been pumped back into the horse or given away for free.” He shook his head tiredly. “How long can I stay here?”

  It was on the tip of Greg’s tongue to tell him that he couldn’t stay at all, but the odds of him being caught as he sneaked out of Mannington were too high. Only four nights ago, he’d been woken by the sound of shooting…and, in the morning, they’d discovered that a young couple who’d been necking outside in his car had been gunned down, after having been mistaken for infiltrators. For once, Greg believed the Order Police’s account of what had happened. It would have been out of character for them to shoot a young woman instead of taking advantage of her.

  “Tonight, certainly,” he said, finally. “Go get out of that…garment and get a shower. The water still works even if little else does. Do you need something to eat?”

  “Anything would be welcome,” Nicolas said, seriously. He stepped outside to start shedding muddy clothes. “Umm…do you have anything I could wear?”

  “I think so,” Greg said. “My dressing gown should be behind the bathroom door. Wear that for the moment and I’ll find you something in the morning.”

  He watched as Nicolas walked upstairs, and then turned back to his cooker. It was simple enough to make a quick dish of scrambled eggs – plenty of farmers kept hens and sold eggs to all comers, allowing them a supplement to their rations – and wait for Nicolas to come back downstairs. He’d thought he’d made enough for an army, but Nicolas devoured it all and some seed cake Greg had been keeping for visitors. He’d been starving, far hungrier than he’d let on.

  “Get some sleep,” he said, finally. He normally kept the guest bedroom ready for visitors. Nicolas had slept there so often that it was practically his second home. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The noise of the door closing seemed terrifyingly loud as he returned to the sitting room and sat down in front of the TV. It was blank – the collaborator government didn’t bother to broadcast propaganda at night, choosing instead to run endless reruns of comedy classics, which Greg disliked on principle – and Greg tried to focus his mind. He wanted, desperately, to escape having to make a decision. There was no good decision for him to make.

  He knew what might happen if Nicolas was discovered in his house. His mind couldn’t escape the possibilities. He’d be taken away alongside the SEAL and thrown in an alien detention camp, or simply killed in front of the townspeople like others who had dared to try to help the resistance. Nancy would lose her father – both of her fathers – and be left alone in the world. It was no longer a safe place for a seven-year-old girl. Perhaps one of the other families in Mannington would take her in, yet he knew that it would be dangerous to place too much faith in human nature. The ration card system ensured that she would be a burden on anyone who took her in, without any reward or additional rations. Mannington wasn't a big city and it should be possible for someone to accept her, yet…how could he trust that she would be fine?

  And what if the Order Police took her for themselves instead? What if…what if…what if…his mind shrank from hundreds of possibilities, each one nastier than the last…what if they took her and disappeared her? Would she die lost and unknown in an alien detention camp, separated from all she knew and loved?

  He looked up at the single picture on the wall. Nancy stood there, five years old, held by her mother, with Greg and Nicolas flanking them. God knew that it was an odd relationship that had bound the four of them together, before Nancy’s mother had died, yet they had all agreed that they wanted the best for Nancy. So many other divorces had ended in bitter fights over custody, or violence between the partners, but this one had worked. But then, Nicolas hadn’t been a jerk or an abusive husband. He was a good person and the mere thought of betraying him made him feel sick, yet it all came back down to Nancy. What would happen to her if her fathers were taken away?

  There wasn't much time, he knew. If the aliens had mounted a major sweep of the area, they would probably order their collaborators to search the town, or do it themselves. Greg had no idea how Nicolas would conceal himself, or even if he could. The Order Policeman who stumbled across him might regret it for a very short violent moment, but even a SEAL couldn’t outfight an entire Order Police force. No one would come to his assistance. Everyone in Mannington knew just what would happen to them if they rose in futile rebellion. They all knew about the town that had been massacred by the aliens, and thousands of smaller atrocities committed by the Order Police. In the end, there seemed to be no choice at all.

  Hesitantly, he reached for the phone and picked it up, dialling a single number. The phone network was rather erratic after the invasion – they all knew that calls were routed through alien-controlled computers – but one number was burned into his mind, one that would always be open. The Order Police had thoughtfully provided them with a number to call if they had anything to say to them, and offered a reward for any actionable intelligence. Greg didn’t want a reward, or anything other than safety for Nancy. He waited for the answer and then started to speak, hoping that he was doing the right thing, and then fearing that he wasn't. It was too late.

  He was committed now.

  ***

  Nicolas had always loved Greg’s guest bedroom, even though there wasn't really very much to it beyond a soft bed, a chest of drawers and a single lamp. He didn’t turn the lamp on, not knowing whether a sudden power drain would attract attention; he just dropped the dressing gown in a heap on the floor and climbed into the bed. It was cold – Greg hadn’t known he was coming – yet it felt like a foretaste of Heaven itself. There was nothing like spending time sleeping on rough ground, or marching twenty miles in one day, to make one appreciate comforts. He said a silent prayer of thanks as he pulled the covers over his eyes, focusing his mind on awakening just before dawn. He had to be out of Mannington before the Order Police sealed the town off and began a house-to-house search.

  He’d conducted them himself as a young soldier and knew the drill. The Order Police were largely untrained animals from the dregs of society, yet they were led by the Walking Dead, men and women who knew how to handle such a task, and were utterly loyal to their ali
en masters. They might well learn new tricks and improve as the war wore on, not least because of Darwin. War tended to kill the stupid, incompetent and unteachable very quickly. Nicolas was the product of one of the most rigorous and harsh training programs in the entire world. The average Order Policeman was lucky if he knew anything about guns before he signed up to serve the aliens. He feared the alien warriors, with reason, but not their human slaves.

  SEALs learned how to fall asleep quickly – it was something that all soldiers learned – and the horrors of the day faded away into dreamless sleep. It seemed like bare moments before his eyes snapped open, alerted by…something. He hadn’t had such a chill running down his neck since the day he’d been awoken by someone’s foot breaking a twig on deployment in Columbia. The rebels who had been attempting to sneak up on the American position were greeted with a hail of gunfire, although the CO had had a number of sharp things to say about sleeping on the job. It hadn’t been fair, Nicolas had thought at the time, although he knew better now. The politicians had promised them that the local army units could be trusted. They should have known better.

  Silently, he felt under the pillow and removed the pistol he’d concealed there. He strained his ears to hear something – anything – but heard nothing. And yet, somehow, the shiver at the back of his neck refused to face. Something had woken him, but what? He felt the reassuring weight of the pistol in his hand, yet he didn’t quite dare point it towards the door. What if it had been Nancy, woken up by his discussion with Greg, coming to see her father before he slipped away? He regretted slipping away the last time they’d met, yet there had been no choice. What if…?

  He heard it then, a brief snatch of conversation, too quiet to mean anything, but trouble. He was still bringing up the weapon when the door exploded inwards and three members of the Order Police charged in, yelling their heads off as if they expected him to be sleeping and wanted to awaken him sharply enough to disorientate him. Perhaps it would have succeeded if he had been sleeping, but instead he shot the first one and rapidly moved to the second one. There was no way out that didn’t involve going through them, so there was no choice. He was drawing a bead on the third one when he found himself bathed in a blue-white burst of light from the wand in the third man’s hand. His entire body went limp and he collapsed onto the bed, helpless.

  “Damn it,” he heard his captor said. “He got Chuck and Brad!”

  “Never mind them,” a cold dispassionate voice said. Nicolas could still hear, but no matter how hard he strained, he couldn’t move. The voice was unmistakably that of one of the Walking Dead. “Bind him, hands and feet, and then prepare to transport him out of here.”

  Sheer fury flared through Nicolas as he realised just how badly he’d fucked up. It didn’t matter how they’d caught him, if he’d been tracked to Greg’s house or if one of his neighbours had realised that he had company; he’d fucked up completely. The paralysis prevented him from even killing himself! He’d be taken into an alien compound and emerge as one of their devoted slaves, leading them from resistance camp to resistance camp, helping them to break the back of the underground. He’d become a Judas Goat leading his men to the slaughter.

  Strong arms gripped him and turned him over, allowing the policemen to lock his hands behind his back and then shackle his legs. If he’d been able to move, he might still have been able to fight, but instead…he just had to take it. A new pair of Order Policemen entered and started to kick at him until the Walking Dead man told them to quit it and start carrying him out of the house. Helplessly, raging inside, he watched as they picked him up – not without effort, part of his mind noted with amusement – and half-carried, half-dragged him outside to the waiting van.

  Just for a moment, as his head lolled from side to side, he caught sight of Greg…and knew. He didn’t know how, but somehow he knew exactly who had betrayed him. The sense of knowing that he’d somehow put himself right in the enemy camp stabbed at his heart, leaving him feeling alone and utterly helpless, trapped by his own useless body. The Order Policemen checked the shackles, secured him to the van’s metal floor, and closed the doors with a bang.

  A minute later, the van started up, driving him into captivity.

  He had never felt so alone in his entire life.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Washington DC, USA (Occupied)

  Day 183

  The office was all that she had ever dreamed of, which was unsurprising; the collaborator government, unlike pre-invasion stockholders and editing staff, had allowed Abigail to design and build the office of her dreams. Hundreds of carpenters, tradesmen and workers had slaved over the plans, renovating an office building that had belonged to a major corporation and turning it into a newspaper office. The Washington Times had been born.

  Looking out across the network of desks, computers and eagerly-working reporters, she felt the warm glow of ownership, tempered by the caution of knowing just how exposed she had become. The collaborator government expected her to produce a newspaper that seemed independent, but in reality followed the government line. In the open, she’d have no choice, but to do just that. In private, she would turn the office into the local Committees of Correspondence node and spread information through the Internet into the hands of people who could use it. The reporters she had hired were not only known to her personally, they were known for challenging the establishment, any establishment. Some of them had spent time in foreign jails for asking the wrong questions of the wrong people, others had made names for themselves challenging the government whenever they saw an opening. Some of them had the reporter’s version of Stockholm Syndrome – they attacked the government because they believed that the government would never take the gloves off and just hit back – while others had suffered for their beliefs. She would create an inner team from the ones she knew and trusted and slowly infest the alien propaganda machine with her own people. They wouldn’t know what had hit them.

  Washington had been starved for real excitement recently and she wasn't unaware of the need for some pageantry. The celebrations she’d ordered made a fitting cover for some work of her own, including smuggling older printing presses into the building and burying them on the thirteenth floor. She wasn't superstitious, but the original owner of the building had clearly been reluctant to even acknowledge the existence of the thirteenth floor. The elevators didn’t stop there and the stairs just went past boarded-up doors. It had been easy to secure it for the inner circle, yet she knew that if the Order Police decided to search the building thoroughly, they’d probably locate the hidden floor. She wanted to rig explosives in the building to destroy all the evidence, but it would be a pointless exercise. If the Order Police discovered her role in the underground news network, she’d be dragged out and shot. Or perhaps turned into one of the Walking Dead. She was still surprised that they’d trusted her with as much responsibility without making sure of her loyalty.

  Or perhaps they wanted to give me the illusion of freedom, she thought, as she slipped back into her office and closed the door behind her. The aliens wanted her to feed the American public crap – no difference there, then, the humorous part of her mind whispered – and convince them that she was a truly independent editor, running a truly independent newspaper. It would be a lie, and yet, people would want to believe. The reporters she’d hired would want to believe otherwise, but they'd know the truth soon enough, at least until she let them in on the secret. It was so hard to know who could be trusted these days.

  She glanced down at the report on her desk and winced. One of her best writers would have to put a glowing spin on the report, and it wouldn’t be hard. The aliens and the Order Police had launched a massive counter-insurgency operation in Virginia and had systematically wiped out a number of resistance camps. They hadn’t included any figures for how many aliens and collaborators had been lost, but some of the other reports she’d read had suggested that hundreds of them had been killed in heavy fighting. The resistance
was a fluid network and could probably re-establish itself in time – the aliens were hardly winning hearts and minds – yet any pause in activities would give them time to consolidate what they’d won. It might be months – or years – before the resistance spread back into Virginia.

  Or perhaps they’re lying through their teeth, she thought, trying to remain hopeful. She still had her links to the underground newspaper and they suggested that there was still hope. Eliminating an insurgency completely was nearly impossible – it required a political solution better than offering people a choice between permanent servitude and death – yet it was definitely possible to cripple it. Given enough time, the aliens and their collaborators would establish a police state that would dwarf the worst that humanity had ever produced. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union wouldn’t come close to the sheer level of horror that would be unleashed across America.

  There was a knock on the door. “Your latest appointment is here, editor,” her secretary said. She’d hired an up-and-coming young woman who freely admitted that she knew nothing about reporting, but she knew how to manage an office. Abigail had hired her purely at a whim, but so far Dana had more than proved her worth. “And I have to remind you that you’re expected in the Green Zone in two hours.”

  “Thank you,” Abigail said, seriously. “I’ll be out in an hour, so please have my car brought around to the front entrance for then and I’ll be on my way.”

  She looked up as one of the new Captains of Industry – as the alien news broadcasts had termed them – entered the office. She’d met him before when she’d been a lowly reporter and she was mildly surprised that he had chosen to collaborate – he’d once opened every stockholder’s meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance – but he’d had millions of people working, either directly or indirectly, for him. The aliens had probably given him a choice between working for them or having his company taken away and given to someone more inclined to be loyal. And perhaps he was working for the resistance. It was the one question she couldn’t ask.