Copyright © 2016 by Mark Marinaccio
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Chapter 1
FOUR YEARS AFTER THE ARRIVAL
Agent Kate Pierce is swimming in the standard issue baseball cap and windbreaker jackets provided to her by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, known by its acronym, ICE. She looks like a victim wearing a hero's clothing, the kid you'd see outside a burning house or after an earthquake. Though she's not a victim, she knows she's a hero. She just hasn't had her fight to prove it yet. Agent Pierce is new to this post, just a pencil pusher by most accounts, but she's ok with the tasks put before her, she's eager to learn, pay her dues and advance into genuine field work. Like the immigrants in line and every other worker in the building, she's watching and listening to Ringbak Arr's speech. She's engaged but not involved, not yet anyway. She looks out amongst the immigrants and as Ringbak paints his picture of societal harmony amongst the colonists and humanity. She knows one thing is clear: these people are screwed. She has sympathy for the immigrants standing stoically, obediently, in front of her. But she knows the way things have been done in the past are about to be trashed forever and the new immigration process, the one for the aliens, is going to change everything for everyone. Even more so for the human migrant hordes, the ones who will no doubt get pushed even further to the back of the line.
The percussive echo of three explosions rocket through the halls of the local I.C.E. offices in downtown Manhattan. The long lines of hopeful yet realistically depressed immigrants shift and balance amongst their places in line. Agent Kate Pierce admires their dedication to the legal immigration process and their ability to endure countless hours of bureaucracy and red tape in order to come into this country the right way. When the explosion happens she wastes no time jumping from her desk, checking her side arm against her slim but capable body, and rushing toward the danger, throwing off the hat and men's jacket that imprisons her. She is taller than you'd think from her sitting position, with familiar reddish-brown hair and a figure that makes men turn their heads regardless of the fact that she's got a gun and federal badge. The immigrants sway to the noise and vibrations but they are hesitant to move and risk losing the spots they've been securing for hours in line but Kate doesn't hesitate, not for a moment, instead she bolts through the security doors and bulletproofed waiting area and out into the street, out into the noise, out into the danger. Her sharp hazel eyes draw their focus directly on the smoke-filled street two blocks away. Through the panicked crowd she finds her path then moves immediately towards the danger and with a quick grab of her shoulder length hair into a ponytail, she's off while her fellow agents shriek above the chaos for her to come back. She hears them, but they are the least important thing on her mind. She has her reason for action, finally, and she lets them know it. With a disinterested smirk, out the side of her mouth, she's already gone.
Agent Pierce arrives quickly to the site of one of the explosions. Hundreds of colonist supporters, happy just a moment ago, now covered in blood. Broken welcome signs are hanging from their wood posts, still in the hands of the disoriented. Blood trickles down the heads of many, other lay paralyzed with fear and pain. It’s a massacre of traffic but instead of car horns Agent Pierce hears screams and cries for help. Arms reach up from the smoke-filled street, like a zombie apocalypse, they try to grab her, to stop her, to get help from her. Pierce glances down as she moves but she knows what she’s looking at, they are already dead, she’s looking for the ones who did this but it’s dreadfully obvious that she won’t make it that far. Pierce pushes her way through the carnage of debris and bodies, now, stopping for longer, checking for signs of life, but the fifteen souls that she's come across so far are gone, gruesomely gone. Anger and sadness fill her profound heart, but with a furrowed brow and determined lips she presses on looking for survivors. That's when she hears it, a sound so clear amongst the catastrophe, like a growing echo getting closer and closer. Pierce turns, instinctually toward the sound and through a brief part of the sea of death she sees her, a young child, the one who was screaming a moment ago is silent now. Within seconds pierce descends upon a young girl who isn’t more than six or seven years old. The girl holds a welcome sign in one hand and has nothing in the other, the empty sleeve of her short sleeve tee shirt tells the whole story, she’s lost her left arm up to the shoulder. Kate falls to her knees at the sight then the touch of the child. Crying, Kate can hardly contain herself but the verbal silence is the only comfort to her in this moment. The young girl collapses in Kate’s arms, providing a brief reprieve from her tears but she struggles Kate sobs. The girl replies with a smile and speaks, her voice angelic, soft and aware, "it will be alright, you look fine", Kate laughs full of tears and sorrow. The girl dies.
Chapter 2
ONE YEAR LATER
One year after the introduction of the colonists to the world through their leader, Ringbak Arr, and the subsequent bombings, which were ruled to be acts of terrorism by the P.A.C. 36 League, People Against Colonists, chapter 36, a small meeting is taking place at the ICE headquarters in Washington D.C.
Agent Kate Pierce cautiously takes her seat in front of an ICE superior and two men in black uniforms standing behind him. She thinks it odd that these men are here for the issuance of her assignment but critical thinking is distracted by the television on the wall. They are all watching, as President Umani stands again with Ringbak Arr in on the lawn of the White House. Amongst them this time is not the commanders of the world but instead children.
"...That is why today we are able to announce that the reattachment process has begun and is starting, as we speak, across our great nation. Children like the ones that you see here today, colonist children, are being brought to their relatives here on Earth for a chance to connect with what it truly means to be human. As part of the immigration process any child who is welcomed by their relatives is granted immediate residency with citizenship a short spell away."
The commander, at his ornate desk, gestures a look toward the two gentlemen standing in the back of the room. Kate easily senses their disdain for this president and what he is saying, no special training required to discern that fact.
"Agent Pierce, these gentlemen are from the FBI and are part of a joint task force between our two organizations to be called the reattachment division. Agent Grace here will be your new partner and will brief you on your first assignment.”
Stiff and serious to a fault, Agent Grace moves forward, "Agent Pierce, you and I will be assisting in the reattachment process. We will be personally delivering colonist children to their relations here on Earth. These meetings have been pre-arranged and the persons have been fully vetted, however, we have reason to believe that one or more chapters of the PAC will make attempts during the reattachment processes across the country."
"Attempts? Sir?"
"The PAC, especially chapter 36, is a violent organization that opposes everything that the Colonists want. We have been engaging them during these reattachments, and they show no signs of getting any weaker, but instead are improving and advancing their engagement tactics."
"I'm not sure that I understand,” Pierce challenges, The president has just announced this program, are you saying we've already begun?"
The commander in the room looks toward the agents from the FBI again and they exchang
e looks. Kate knows that they have done this before. She can see the mystery in their exchange.
"Agent Pierce, our time is up here, Agent Grace will fill you in on the rest during your first assignment." He lifts a heavy folder from his desk and drops it in front of her.
"Child nineteen. Female, six years old, by our count. Be safe out there."
Chapter 3
Agent Charlie Grace is permitted his stoic charm because to Agent Pierce it’s just that, charming. She doesn’t mind the long bouts of silence during their long ride north but she knows by his double grip on the steering wheel that he’s just as uncomfortable with the silence as he is.
“Were you FBI before immigration?” She hopes for just enough to open the door but she knows just enough from the short time they’ve been in the car together that grace won’t give her much.
“Twelve years, NCIC.”
NCIC stands for the National Crime Information Center and Pierce has just gained a lot more from those four letters than she has during the entire ride so far. Up until now it’s been, “where are you from” and “do you have any siblings”, to which his answers were just enough to make her feel like she was connecting but the truth is that his lack of any information makes the littlest of a tidbit of information seem like a “dear diary” moment, but it’s not.
“Missing persons?”, she pretends as if she doesn’t know.
“I was part of multi-state task force to locate missing persons within the first 18 hours of their disappearance.”
It clicks, Kate feels so smart, she get something about him now and can’t contain it, “missing children right?” She wants him to know that she understands now why he was picked for this, finally a bond! But she speaks too soon and she realizes it as soon as she finished saying the words. Grace had relaxed one hand, he had taken it off the steering wheel so elegantly that she didn’t even notice it was resting in between them until he put it back on the wheel, away from her just like the rest of his body.
“We focused on children believed to be taken by one of their parents. These kids were being used as tools in a fight between two adults with no regard for the damage that they were about to inflict on their own child.”
“So you wanted to find them before…” Kate tries again, too soon she thinks, will he retreat again?
“Before the damage could be done.” Grace allows her the moment of revealing himself. She thinks he knows it too.
“That’s why they picked you for this then, it makes sense, you have experience. I’m still not sure why they picked me, though.”
“They didn’t pick me.” He responds as if it’s a non-issue, so nonchalant.
“What do you mean they didn’t pick you? How did you get on this assignment then?” Clinical curiosity replaces emotional interest for Kate. How could he volunteer for this, she wants to know, “How did you even know about this department?”.
Agent Grace takes a beat, she can see it in his face, he needs to think on this for a moment. If he talks now, there’s no going back, he’s got to give up some information. Kate knows it and she knows that he knows it. This is the moment of choice for him, give up more details and open up to her or shut it down. The two seconds it takes her to realize this might as well have been an hour but it’s over, he speaks, she’s locked in, “When I was nineteen I was a cop in a suburb of Philly, the Main Line. My job was mostly busting kids that I knew in high school for underage drinking and setting speed traps for the rich kids in daddy’s car. I wasn’t well off like them, from the other side of the tracks, my family was happy, though. Then one night I get a call from my Mom, her and my step dad were fighting again. They didn’t get together until I was already out of high school so the guy meant nothing to me but my little sister was only seven and she thought the world of him, he was the only father she really knew. He was a drunk though and they fought a lot and this time he took my sister. We found her thirty-six hours later in a pool of blood. But it wasn’t hers, it was his. My step dad offed himself in front of her, but not before chaining himself to her so that she’d never be able to drag his dead body out to where she could get help. When we found her, she’d been like that for twelve hours. She never recovered, she was in and out of institutions and hospitals for the next few years but they couldn’t do anything for her. She killed herself when she was twelve years old.”
Pierce is both sickened and furious at the same time, she can’t help but feel sorry for Grace and she desperately wants to reach over and grab his hand but at the same time she’s pissed at him. How dare he, she thinks, how dare he share something like this with her so early in their partnership, before she’s gotten to know him, this was too deep, too personal, too dark and horrible for a person to hear from a practical stranger. She’s ready to lash out but gains composure for a moment, keeps the tears at bay because he’s not finished with her yet, he and his charismatic bullying aren’t done with her.
“After that, I joined the FBI and dedicated my career to making sure that never happens to another child as long as I hold a badge”.
Pierce got what she wanted, she knows that and feels awful about it but she’s not a monster either. The sadness she now holds for Grace in her heart quells any hunt for answers that she thought she needed before. She’s ok sitting in silence for the rest of the ride, his ghostly blue eyes and dirty blond eyebrows in the mirror are enough for her to hold on to, they are her steering wheel for her to double grip.
“I’m sorry. I get it now and I’m honored to stand with you to protect these children, regardless of where they’re from”
Chapter 4
There is a small town in New Hampshire named Athol. Near the Winchedon, Massachusetts border it's almost hidden. Pierce and Grace ride alone in their government issue SUV. Agent Pierce realizes that government plates aren't exactly the best way to disguise oneself in front of an aggressor.
"Why the convoy?"
Agent Grace looks in the rear view window as he drives, there are two more identical SUVs following.
She presses, "If the PAC is really targeting us, would a less conspicuous footprint be a better idea?"
"The powers that be believe that a show of force is the best deterrent to aggression. They hope that the sight of us in numbers keeps the enemy at bay."
"Enemy at bay?" Kate's amused by this, it sounds like a line from one of the old war movies that her dad used to watch when she was a kid. They were the kind of movies where the men had crew cuts and fought while wearing clean and pressed Army uniforms with black ties. They would say things like, "Perseverance in the face of danger alerts the enemy to our resolve, breaking their spirits and at that point the war has already been won. The rest is just clean up." She knows it's bullshit.
"It's never worked, you know, the show of force as a deterrent,” she says, now goading him.
"Yeah. I know. Stay sharp Pierce, we are a target no matter what. Believe that every minute you are doing a reattachment and maybe you keep everyone safe."
A few hundred yards, deep into the woods, three black SUVs with government plates descend upon the modest but pleasant home of Jean and Robert Sutcliff—a couple in their early 50's.
Agent Kate Pierce and Section Chief Donald Grace exit their car and approach the house.
"Agent Pierce, remember what we discussed, keep your eyes trained on the surroundings. Don't focus on the child, do you understand? Don’t focus on the child."
Kate hears him and remembers how many time he told her that same line while they were driving from D.C. to New Hampshire. "Don't focus on the child,” over and over again, like it was a mantra. She was prepared, though, in her own mind, happy to do something good for this child.
They knock.
"Good afternoon Ma'am, Sir. I'm agent Grace, this is agent Pierce and we're with the reattachment division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Mrs. Sutcliff is visibly nervous, anxious, and excited. Pierce watches her hands intently as they writhe around within each other, picking at indi
vidual nails as one finger goes to the next. She is a pleasant woman, though, at least Pierce tells herself that. She’ll tell herself anything to feel that this child will be all right. She seems fit, presents herself well. It's at least obvious that she cares about this moment and has the energy to take care of a child. Between hurried breaths, she finds the words to respond, "Oh my, is she here? This is all so incredible. We could never have children of our own. This really is something isn't it?" Mr. Sutcliff now stands with Mrs. Sutcliff. He's not of the same mind, "What if we don't want to meet it? I mean how is she?"
"Nonsense Robert, this is my blood! We already agreed. They brought her all the way out here. We’re not going back on our word. It'll be like a reunion!"
Agent Pierce suspiciously scouts the inside of the home and their surroundings. "Ma'am are you sure that you'd like to do this? It's understandable that you may have made the decision in haste, and we need to know that you won't change your mind once we leave here."
"Yes, we're sure. Well, let's do it then, bring her over. This is all so very exciting!"
Agent Pierce is cautious. The couple is excited but she can see the euphoria in their tired eyes and something about it doesn’t look right, it doesn’t look natural. They could be happy to meet their child, she thinks but her agent mind says maybe not. After all, they are about to meet an alien. Maybe they are equally engaged by that fact and that this is their child, well Mrs. Sutcliff’s at least, no telling who or what the father is. Maybe it’s none of those things, though, maybe it’s a trap and they plan on doing terrible things to this child, the kind of things that happened that day the Ringbak Arr gave his speech. Or was it something less gruesome but equally cruel, were they planning on using her, putting her on display to the media. The fame whores in Hollywood and in the media were clamoring for an alien to put on parade, to shackle with the chains of celebrity. Pierce calms herself, quiets her mind and foes into agent mode, keen on her surroundings, this is a child, after all, and she's not going to hand her over to just anyone. ICE and the FBI did do their diligence, though, these people are vetted, she thinks, and hopefully they're not just in it for the gimmick and the media attention it's sure to draw.
The Colony: Part 2: Reunion Page 1