Invasion

by Eli Constant

  Nick checked his watch. “Maybe an hour or so. You do not understand how lucky it was that everything worked on the first trial run. I mean… that’s,” Nick searched for a word, I supplied one:

  “Impossible.”

  “Yes, impossible.” He said, his face open and amazed.

  I smiled, knowing that it wasn’t luck at all, but something far more divine. “Okay,” I said, “crawl back into bed and grab another hour. I’m going to find Benson.”

  Two hours later, Colonel Benson had organized a meeting in Sub-lab 8. At my request, he’d posted two guards at the entrance of the lab. He thought it was a smart move, especially after I explained how suspicious the doctors were becoming.

  I hated public speaking and was relieved when the meeting was over. It seemed an overreaction for me to feel such relief. Nick and Jamie were the ones explaining the tech and answering questions. I stood in the corner awkwardly.

  Hands were shook. Heads were nodded. Perfunctory, if premature, congratulations offered. Just because the first run was successful, doesn’t mean everything couldn’t fall apart in a single eye-blink during trials.

  It was decided that it would be expeditious to execute preliminary testing on the humanoids already in captivity. Great- more midnight jaunts in Lab-3. At least with Meg gone, the doctors wouldn’t be babysitting in the adjacent room. After telling Benson what had happened the last time I’d entered the cages, he insisted we have a security detail outside the lab, just in case. I hoped we wouldn’t need the back up.

  Benson got us a schematic of Lab-3 that showed the cage systems. He also provided user manuals on the cage air systems. He stood with us for a while, until his radio blared to life.

  “Colonel Benson. Colonel Benson. Over.” Benson unclipped the black handheld from his belt, pressed a side button and spoke.

  “Benson here. Over”

  “Sir, we have new vehicles at the visitor’s center. Permission to mount rescue outing. Over”

  “Permission granted. Clear everything with Jennings. Over.”

  “Yes, sir. Over.”

  The radio fell silent.

  We all looked at each other. The prospect of new arrivals always elicited feelings of hopefulness. I smiled a little- then it was back to business.

  Inoculation of the test subjects should be simple. We access the mainframe for the recirculating air supply- each cage had a separated system- and mix our oxide ions with the purified air.

  Our oxide should continuously leave and enter the room, giving the test beasties plenty of time to suck in a dose and let the nanotech and manufactured vector go to town; unless, of course, the nanotech broke down too quickly and the second experimental phase was a big, freaking disaster.

  If our luck did, against all odds, continue to hold, we’d start reproducing our ‘cure’ and chopper it out to every government facility and safe zone on the planet.

  I prayed our luck held.

  The undergrounders needed to be dealt with in a final, irreversible way.

  This inoculation would save me a lot physical effort. If it didn’t work, I’d put all my energies into making the world safe for my girls. I would never rest and my guns would never cool. And yes, I planned on lifting Jason’s Desert Eagles for the bloody occupation. It would suit me, the change in career.

  I’d had a passionate, sordid affair with the human mind; I’d even been pretty damn innovative at times, but I was ready to leave that career behind me. Besides, spending time with Jamie and Nick had convinced me that I was no genius.

  We were walking down the hallway now- Jamie, Nick, Colonel Benson and me. My three companions conversed excitedly. I caught snippets, lost in my own reverie.

  We were, apparently, planning to make our move immediately. Jamie thought the two already manufactured tanks would be enough to treat half of the cages and leave the other half as controls. Because of the rebreathing system, each cage wouldn’t require much tech.

  I did speak up then. “You’ll want to leave cage twenty out of the experiment. That particular undergrounder is displaying an advanced aptitude for human behavior. She won’t make a reliable subject.” They quickly accepted my recommendation, making me feel less disposable.

  “Okay. You know more about the undergrounders in Lab-3 than we do. We’ll keep cage twenty out and we’ll inoculate the first ten cages and just have nine controls.” They began to talk again, but I interrupted Nick in mid-sentence.

  “Have you also taken into consideration the drug cocktail that the doctors administer to each of the humanoids daily? Even with leaving controls, you aren’t controlling anything. Each of your subjects is going to be under the influence of various antipsychotics, relaxants, and more. We can project a minimal conflict with our vector, but we can’t guarantee it. If this run is successful, we’ll need to bring in unaltered, wild beasties- so we can insure that behavior changes are entirely attributed to our chromosome eating, super vectors.”

  The group was really looking at me now, seeing me.

  “We didn’t know about the daily drug administrations.” Jamie was biting her thumb nail, thinking.

  “It hadn’t come up until now. Let’s just see how this test goes and we’ll plan from there. I agree we need to move quickly.”

  Colonel Benson nodded. “I’ll have the security issues hammered out in the next hour. Do you need me for anything else?”

  “We’ll let you know. Can you continue to keep someone posted at our lab round the clock also?”

  “No problem Mrs. Swanson. I’ll have them change shifts at 0900 and 2100. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the hangar. See how the rescue panned out.”

  Colonel Benson parted ways with us then, brushing his cap with the fingers of his right hand in a loose salute. I watched his tall form disappear around the corner.

  If I needed muscle on my side, I was glad it was him.

  When I walked into the cafeteria a short while later, the atmosphere was… different than usual. I grabbed a bowl of spaghetti and found my group at a different table near the rear of the room.

  “What the heck is going on? It feels like we should have dozens of flags at half-mast in here.”

  Jason looked at me, straight faced, his mouth in an unmoving, horizontal line. “Ten flags.” He said, his voice was hard. I looked around the room, studying individual faces more carefully. All were somber- some sad, some tearful.

  “What happened?” My head swung quickly back. I searched Jason’s face. I knew tragedy was coming, but I wasn’t quite prepared for his words.

  “Surveillance picked up four SUVs pulling into the park from the main gate. Everyone was so excited in the hangar. We started mobilizing before the vehicles parked at the visitors’ center for pick up. We should have waited.” He stopped. It would have felt like a forced, dramatic pause if not for the moisture building on his inner, lower eyelids.

  “Our choppers landed. The SUVs were stationary; we couldn’t see any movement inside. We all had the same thought- the survivors had been attacked before we could get there, that we were too late. That didn’t make sense though… someone would have radioed from here and let us know. But the thought of losing so many people was unbearable. We had to check the vehicles. Six of our men went to ground level.” He took a deep breath.

  “I watched the doors to the SUVs swing open. I watched the closest men carved to bits by claws. Before the other men could raise their guns, the undergrounders were on top of them. The bastards tricked us. They’ve watched us and they knew if a vehicle arrived, we’d show up. They drove, Elise; they drove and they waited.

  “The men on the ground didn’t have a chance. Before our guys on the roof could pull up the ladder, two of the undergrounders were up it. Ken was thrown over. I can still hear his scream. It drowned out every other sound. My chopper made it; the other pilot couldn’t get off the roof quick enough. It was…” He trailed off. His head hung limply on his neck. He whispered the last words. “… a massacre.”
>
  I’d seen the moisture, but I didn’t realize full tears were forming until salty drops began to plink against the bottom of the empty metal bowl in front of him. Growing up, I’d always been taught that a man crying was against nature.

  I married my husband because he was tough, could take a hit. My dad used to say ‘he’s a real man, Elise. I’m proud of you.’

  Funny that that was the only time my dad said he was proud. He didn’t say it when I graduated high school, or undergraduate, or from my master’s program. He’d said he was proud of me because of a man.

  Then I really got to know my husband. David was strong, as strong as I thought, but he was kind and gentle too. He cried at the births of our daughters. He cried when we had to put our first dog, Sassy, to sleep because of cancer. I’d held him the night he had to shoot a kid that pulled a gun on his partner. Seeing a man cry was no longer the taboo event it used to be.

  Seeing Jason cry, I loved him even more. In the room full of people, I didn’t want to embarrass him by leaping across the table for a soothing embrace. I settled for stretching my arm across the smooth surface and grasping his hand. In a brief caress, I tried to communicate my feelings for Jason, my reaction to the losses… everything.

  Megan, Kara, and Meg had been so still and quiet during Jason’s story. Kara didn’t understand what had happened, but she could feel the emotions in the room and her body reflected.

  She leaned against her sister and munched slowly on sauce-free noodles. Megan’s arm hung loosely around her sister’s shoulders. Meg, although also quiet, spoke volumes with her face as she stared at Jason. For the first time since sitting down, I looked for Michael and Allison.

  “Where’s the rest of our little family?”

  “Michael wasn’t feeling up to coming. This was his first trip out on the chopper. He tried to save one of the guys on the roof. He grabbed the guy’s hand, but an undergrounder attacked the man at the same time. Michael blames himself, feels he should have held on. I tried to talk to him, but he doesn’t need me right now. He needs her.”

  I knew Jason was referring to Allison. They were a young pair, but their bond seemed to be growing deeper every day. I’d have to talk to Michael about… protection. The last thing we needed was a teenage girl pregnant. I wasn’t even going to contemplate how awful it would be to bring another baby into such an uncertain world.

  After the depressing lunch, I returned to the lab, bringing Jamie and Nick as many snacks as I could stash in my cargo pockets.

  We made the best of the rest of the day. It may have been counting our chicks while the eggs were incubating, but we began to reproduce our results. If our solution was truly the solution, we’d already have a closet full of tanks ready and willing to release their contents and save the world. Optimism- the food of champions.

  I did what I could to help Jamie and Nick, but honestly they were like a well-oiled assembly line. They worked in tandem and accomplished more when I stayed the hell out of the way.

  I felt useless again.

  I was really, really starting to hate that feeling.

  Testing 1, 2, 3

  The facility’s grieving climate was not party-friendly.

  I spoke with Timmons and we decided to postpone the birthday celebration for the girls. I felt bad as he’d already made the cake layers, but he said the vanilla sheets were easily frozen- he could defrost them anytime.

  I was really glad I hadn’t told the girls about the party; it was a small consolation not having to tell them and deal with their pouty faces.

  Colonel Benson also made a command decision and we delayed the second testing phase. Jamie and Nick weren’t so emotionally tied to the situation, but nonetheless mourned the deaths.

  We waited two days.

  During the reprieve, I concentrated on my girls and Jason.

  I tried so hard to alleviate his sadness, to get him to smile. For some reason I didn’t understand, watching the men die had profoundly influenced Jason… my husband. It was hard to get used to thinking of him that way. He’d seen death before so why was the experience so poignant now?

  At one point, even Kara walked up to Jason and asked what was wrong. She wanted to help make him happy again. The innocence of children can be the fragile soul’s breaking point. Jason had to leave the room after Kara’s sweet voice quieted. I didn’t follow him.

  My now ever-present feeling of uselessness was frustrating, but in time, Jason let down his barriers and we were as husband and wife should be- comforting one another’s minds, bodies, and souls.

  The night after the tragedy, he came to me. Michael and Allison were sound asleep, wrapped up together under a pile of blankets. The girls were snoring peacefully.

  Jason cried softly. I kissed him tenderly. We were so quiet, trying not to wake the others. His tears were soon spent. Then his hand was under the material of my shirt, caressing the bareness of my back.

  My hands were busy also, running through his hair, tracing the contours of his face. My fingers prickled with the tenderness of the touching. I was warm with happiness. We made love slowly and for the pure pleasure of closeness. There was no end game, no illusions, and no finish. We petted and loved and whispered sweet words.

  Jason was Jason again by the following morning. While the others slept in, we showered together. There was no one in the women’s bathroom; we showered quickly. The warm, wet water was a wonderful compliment to the feelings and heat between us.

  Megan, Kara, and Meg were awake and dressing when we returned from the bathroom. I hugged them both. Megan asked for a French braid so I sat, brushing and twisting. I layered one strand over another, always gathering a little more hair along the way.

  Building the braid, piece by piece, reminded me a bit of life. We wake into the world and from birth to adulthood we are forming ideas, relationships. We build ourselves strand by strand until we have a uniquely braided style.

  I’d come to understand that no matter how hard one strives towards perfections, weaved life will always come out lopsided. Once I’d finished Megan’s hair, Kara insisted on having hers braided, and then it felt unfair to leave Meg out. It took 45 minutes, but my trio of girls sported sassy hairdos as we strolled towards breakfast.

  The mess hall was still quieter than usual. I wondered how long it would take for everyone to start acting normal again. At least no one was crying. Sobbing ruined the taste of my porridge. Actually, I think the taste of my porridge ruined the taste of my porridge.

  As was routine, everyone in our group went their separate ways after eating. I checked in with Jamie and Nick, but they had everything under control and my staying would only have heightened my null-and-void feelings. I left the lab after only a short time, knowing we were meeting later to inoculate the undergrounder cages.

  For lack of anything better, I went to Lab-3 to see if Peters and O’Toole were there. They weren’t.

  I stood in front of Sheila-1’s cage and got lost in observation. Sheila-1 improved every time I saw her. She sat at a desk now- a new addition to her room- and seemed to be writing or drawing. I didn’t see Acorn anywhere.

  Alarmed, my eyes roved the room from corner to corner, back and forth. He was nowhere to be seen- not in his bed of blankets on the bed, not near his food dish. Granted, I could not see under the desk or beneath the bed, but I was beginning to get the gut sensation that Acorn was buried and not likely to produce a sapling.

  I was struck again with the irrational nature of my affection for the furry squirrel. How could I begrudge the doctors their sordid fondness for the beastie in front of me?

  Sheila-1 was in pink today- a very lady-like monster. At that moment, I thought something I never would have expected. I looked at her and I saw myself. Past the pink, past the paler skin, past the growing silver hair, I saw a woman caged.

  Growing smarter every day and outgrowing the sphere created around her; I saw myself. And suddenly, I believed she should be freed. This was another unexpected parad
igm shift. Much like my feelings toward the doctors.

  At the moment that thought scurried across my conscious mind, Acorn scurried from beneath the desk. My last reservation melted away and I made a pact with the self within myself that if the time came to leave NORAD, I would ensure that Sheila-1 was allowed a chance to be more than an experiment.

  It was an unspoken promise, but I would not soon forget it and I would not break it.

  Without consciously deciding to, my right hand rose to the glass and my index finger tapped. Sheila-1’s head rose and turned in my direction. Her body followed. She slow-walked to me; her head motions still retained the reptilian back and forth of the wild undergrounder, but it was drastically less pronounced.

  I wasn’t afraid of her; I had no urge to step backwards in fear. She looked at me and I looked at her. I hadn’t noticed before that she grasped a pad of paper in her hand. She held it up into my line of sight.

  I gasped.

  The picture was of a man in a white lab coat, grasping the hand of a little girl. What shocked me was the little girl’s other hand was linked with a woman’s hand. The woman wore a pink dress. I’d never considered that Sheila-1 had made the connection that Meg was her biological daughter.

  Something in Meg’s appearance, smell, or mannerisms had triggered Sheila-1’s maternal instincts and Sheila-1 knew that Meg was her child. Never underestimate the power of a mother’s intuition.

  I tried to imagine how it would feel to look upon the face of the woman who was playing mother to my child. I told myself that I was giving Meg a chance, a place in the world of humans- something that her humanoid mother could never offer. It was unfair of me to assume that Meg belonged in her father’s world and not her mother’s, but I rationalized it away and made myself feel better.

  I walked away from Sheila-1 and her picture. I left behind the lab and the feelings of guilt. I would hold to my promise and give the evolving beastie a chance to live outside of confinement, but no way was Sheila-1 going near my daughter. Meg is mine now, I thought viciously. No blood relation would take from me what is mine.