Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem

by Christopher Nuttall

  “RETURN TO YOUR HOMES,” the alien voice thundered. It was harsh and terrifying. “DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE THE CITY. ANY ATTEMPT TO CROSS THE BARRIER WILL BE MET BY LETHAL FORCE!”

  Abigail stared at the alien warriors. It was her first sighting of them and she had to admit they were terrifying, like a monster from a low-budget science-fiction movie. Behind the aliens, there were armoured vehicles shaped like tanks, providing support to the alien infantry. If the humans tried to force their way out, the aliens would clearly be able to stop them…and, judging from the pile of bodies nearby, had already proven their ability to do so. Abigail caught back a sob as she caught sight of one of the bodies and realised that it was just a little girl, barely older than seven. Her body had been burned through by an alien weapon and dumped in the pile.

  She thought about drawing her pistol and joining the group of armed citizens who were preparing to try and break through the alien cordon, but there was no point. The aliens had enough firepower to stop a handful of humans in their tracks and they probably had more out there beyond the city. Their massive craft was still looming overhead, casting the city into unnatural darkness. There didn’t seem to be any other choice. Slowly, she walked away, back to her apartment. There was nowhere else to go.

  Behind her, shots broke out, followed by the sound of alien weapons firing.

  It didn’t last long.

  ***

  Sergeant Arun Prabhu cursed under his breath as he saw the aliens wiping out the civilian group. He’d come up through the sewers and scouted around, knowing the dangers if the aliens or criminals caught him, but it hadn’t taken long to realise that the aliens were rapidly tightening up the noose. Their forces had clearly been deployed with considerable forethought and they’d trapped almost all of the remaining population of Washington within the city. It wasn't as if they had any use for them either. They just had to be prevented from swarming out over the countryside.

  He checked a possible escape route and frowned. The massive alien craft was the real joker in the deck and he had to admit that it made one hell of a convincing argument against any resistance. The tactic seemed simple enough. The alien fighters cleared the way; the massive landing ship moved in and took control. How much trouble would the United States have had in Baghdad, he wondered, if they’d parked a flying aircraft carrier over the city and plunged it into shadow? Probably far less than they’d actually had. The aliens were still swarming over the centre of town, but now they were flooding into the suburbs, concentrating on rooting out any resistance. He had strict orders to avoid contact if possible, but part of him wanted desperately to forget his orders and go after the aliens. Years ago, he’d lurked in a Middle Eastern town and watched as a captive was brutally raped and then murdered, unauthorised to intervene. This was worse. Far worse. Washington itself was being raped in front of him.

  But he knew his duty. Slowly, remaining out of sight, he backed away from the aliens and headed towards the warehouse that concealed one of the entrances into the tunnel system. They’d have to slip out under cover of darkness – real darkness. The sight of sunlight at the edge of the city was tantalising and inaccessible. If they were lucky, the plan would work perfectly. If they weren’t lucky, the aliens would be snapping at their tail for the entire escape. He was halfway to the warehouse when he stopped dead and saw something that almost made him forget his orders again. The aliens had prisoners.

  He’d seen them through the cameras, of course, but it wasn't the same as coming face to face with soldiers, people he knew, being taken prisoner. Very few Americans had been taken prisoner in the Iraq War, although there were still question marks over the fate of prisoners from the Gulf War, or Vietnam. He stopped dead as he saw a line of prisoners, some badly injured, being marched out of the city by the aliens. There was no way of knowing where they were going, or what the aliens had in mind to do to them, and he wanted desperately to rescue them. But he couldn’t do anything. He’d left most of his weapons behind in the bunker and he was just one man. The resistance would have to liberate the prisoners, if they could, before they were dissected for medical experiments. The entire planet knew, now, what the aliens had been doing at the South Pole.

  Slowly, he backed away and found another route to the warehouse. There was no longer any time to delay.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Washington DC, USA (Occupied)

  Day 69/70

  The night sky was dark, unbroken by even a single glimmer of manmade light. The alien craft hovering high over the centre of Washington was a dark shadow in the air, casting a darker one over the land below. Washington was normally brightly lit, but with the power failures and the presence of the aliens, there were few lights piercing the darkness tonight. The city was dying.

  “Come on up, sir,” Pepper said. “There’s no one around.”

  The President climbed up out of the hatch and into the warehouse. It was easy to recognise it as the warehouse where he’d briefed the Special Operations soldiers, back before the aliens had invaded and the world turned upside down. The only illumination came from a set of glow-in-the-dark strips intended to assist workers if the power cut out, leaving him barely able to recognise Pepper’s shape in the darkness. It had been a long time since he’d used night vision gear in Iraq, but he hadn’t forgotten how to use it. The outside streets took on an eerie deserted look through the goggles. The crowds of civilians and the criminals that preyed on them had either fled the city or were lying very low. They wouldn’t want to attract attention from the aliens.

  They’d had an emotional farewell with Colonel Ellertson and his staff. The Colonel had volunteered to remain behind in the Tomb and continue to monitor the situation in Washington for the Resistance, now that contact had been re-established through the Internet. It wasn't something the President would have been happy about, not with the massed might of the aliens bearing down on them, but someone had to remain in the city. The five operators and a handful of spotters might be all that the Resistance had left in Washington. Intellectually, he was sure that others had survived the landings, but none had made contact yet. They might be completely alone.

  A shadow detached itself from the wall and revealed itself to be one of the Green Berets. Even with the goggles, he’d been hard to see, the result of wearing an urban combat uniform designed to conceal the infrared signature of his body. The President hoped that it would be just as effective against alien scanners, although no one knew what the aliens would use to hunt for human fighters on the ground. The reports had suggested that their ground-combat technology wasn’t significantly advanced over humanity’s tech, but few trained observers had survived the landings all over America. The President had read the reports after he’d rested and knew what they meant. There would be no safety anywhere until the aliens were driven out of America and back into space.

  The original evacuation plans were all so much junk now. Air Force One was no longer at Andrews Air Force Base - it had been moved to a civilian airport to keep it safe – and it was inaccessible, even if it hadn’t been captured or destroyed by the aliens. The other plans, involving Marine helicopters and even stealth craft, were even worse, and most of their possible destinations would have been compromised. Camp David would have been occupied – he couldn’t imagine the aliens missing it – along with several of the better-known bunkers. There were a dozen command and control bunkers that had never made it into the media and might still be safe, yet the aliens had landed in Washington and might have seized the human archives. If they hadn’t been destroyed in time, they might be able to use them to track down the remaining bunkers and destroy them. The Vice President was in one of those bunkers, the President knew, sparing a thought for his old friend. His security staff should be able to take care of him if all hell broke loose.

  “There’s no sign of enemy activity,” the Green Beret hissed. “We can make our move now.”

  The President hefted his M16 and nodded. Despite himself, the thou
ght of seeing action again was seductive. He’d traded in his suit and tie for a more practical outfit, although he still wore body armour under his shirt. The soldiers had proposed putting the President in a uniform like theirs, but a quick search of the Tomb had revealed no spare uniforms, nor could he have fitted into one of theirs. If they were lucky, they’d be mistaken for a group of refugee soldiers trying to make it back to their units, or perhaps cowards fleeing the battle. The President might be a known public figure, Pepper had reasoned, but the aliens might not recognise him after a little effort at altering his features. She’d cut off his hair and played around with a make-up set, changing his appearance subtly. The President no longer recognised himself.

  “Come on,” Pepper hissed. “Let’s move.”

  The air was thick with the smell of burning, although all of the fires seemed to have been put out by the aliens or the Washington Fire Department. The cameras had showed images of the alien craft picking up vast amounts of water from the Potomac and dropping them over the fires, extinguishing them one by one. The President had been silently relieved that they didn’t seem to intend to burn Washington to the ground, yet it was somehow ominous. The aliens had come as colonists, he knew. Did they intend to move into humanity’s very homes? It dawned on him that no one had seriously considered what the aliens might do with humanity’s population. Did they intend to enslave the humans or simply ignore them?

  Pepper herself had changed her outfit again, looking more like a cheerleader than a Secret Service Agent. Her original plan had been to escort the President out herself, claiming to be a couple out on the town if anyone asked, but some covert scouting had revealed that they would need the help of the soldiers to get out of the city. It was more proof that the aliens were in firm control. The alien forces had ringed the city and were still turning back anyone trying to leave. At least they weren't shooting humans at random. The President took a certain amount of consolation from that, even though it suggested that the aliens might have other fates in mind for humanity. Keeping them penned up in the cities might have been intended as a first step towards enslaving the human race.

  He followed Pepper carefully, keeping to the shadows, barely able to pick out the sounds of the remaining soldiers bringing up the rear. Washington was deathly quiet, with barely any noise echoing through the darkened air. He looked out at the alien craft’s giant shadow and shivered. There was no doubt that the country – his country – was in the grip of a massive invasion. His position as President was meaningless in all but name. He thought about some of the more drastic plans to ruin the planet and prevent the aliens from using Earth and wondered if his successor would be forced to use them, or if the aliens would somehow prevent them from destroying the planet. Would they compromise if the alternative meant both races dying?

  They passed a body lying on the ground, a half-naked man who had been kicked to death. The President wondered what his life story had been and who had killed him, as if it mattered. It was the civilians who mattered. They were the ones that the military existed to defend. They didn’t deserve, no matter how little they understood the realities of the world, to die like that. They deserved better. Three months ago, everyone had known that the United States was the world’s sole superpower and had a bright future ahead of it. Now, the United States President was crawling through his own capital city, trying to escape, while aliens occupied the countryside and prepared to colonise the world. The remainder of the world would be intimidated into submission, or perhaps, now that the aliens had occupied America, they’d occupy the rest of the world as well. He imagined alien fighters cutting through the British, French, German and Russian air forces and shivered. They’d wreaked enough havoc to completely destroy the world as mankind had known it. It was the end of an era.

  Pepper held up a hand and the President stopped dead. A troop of five alien warriors was marching right down the centre of the road, their heads swinging from side to side as they watched for signs of trouble. The scene was so unbelievable that it was almost surreal, something right out of a low-budget movie, yet it was happening. He felt his hand clasping the M16 and fought down a desperate desire to leap out and start shooting. The aliens passed them by, missing them…or perhaps simply ignoring them as long as they didn’t pose a threat. They hadn’t made any announcement of a curfew to the population. The only announcement they’d made had been the order to remain within the city and wait.

  It seemed like hours before Pepper motioned for him to move again, yet it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. He felt stiff, as if he’d been standing still for days, yet as he followed her, he rapidly regained ease of movement. The outskirts of Washington loomed up in front of him, revealing a network of old warehouses and utilities that had been abandoned in the wake of the economic collapse and the alien invasion. Businesses had been going out of business all over the world. If the aliens had promised a new order of peace and prosperity, the President knew, much of the world’s population would have followed them. So many citizens had been in debt that the sudden banking collapse must have been something of a relief.

  The thought was a bitter one. He’d been elected on a promise of reform, after convincing the Republican Party that he could win – mainly by defeating the Party’s preferred candidate – and he'd had great plans to reform and rebuild sections of America. All of his great plans had come to nothing. The aliens had occupied the country and there was nothing left, but endless underground warfare until they either defeated the aliens or were wiped out entirely. The government he’d sought to reform – that he had reformed – was gone. The proud military he’d lavished care and attention on had been wiped out, or reduced to an insurgency force fighting a vastly superior foe. The thought kept echoing in his head. No other American President had lost the entire country.

  “In here,” Pepper hissed. The President followed her into a darkened building, completely abandoned. His nostrils twitched at the stink, although he'd smelled worse when he’d gone to war. She’d played her cards close to her chest about where they were going, but it didn’t take much effort to deduce that they were about to enter the sewers. The underground tunnel network had once been linked to the sewers, despite the risk of discovery, but a careful check had revealed that part of the network had collapsed. “Take off your goggles.”

  The President did so, and then covered his eyes as a light shone out in her hand, revealing a set of steps leading down to the sewers. He’d seen the sewers in his hometown years ago and remembered that they pumped the sewage out to a reclamation plant well outside the city, where it would be recycled as best as possible. He’d been a kid at the time and he'd thought that it was funny, even though he hadn’t wanted to think about it too much. Pepper glanced around, looking for signs that the aliens were ahead of them, before leading the way down towards the tunnels.

  “This place has been completely shut down,” one of the soldiers muttered. “There’s going to be a backlog of shit all the way back to homes and toilets.”

  The President winced. A modern city was constantly under threat of being drowned in its own refuse. The aliens had blocked the ways in and out of the city, which meant that the population would rapidly run out of food, water and other vital supplies, while they wouldn’t be able to wash or even go to the toilet. Disease and deprivation would spread rapidly. He’d served in several Third World cities where the balance had been lost, never to be regained, leaving the population at the mercy of fate. The lucky ones – the powerful ones – had had all the luxuries they could wish for. The unlucky ones had had no hope of anything but death. They had had no schools, no health care, nothing…not even hope. They'd been born waiting to die.

  “Then we’d better get moving,” Pepper said, tartly. “They’ll probably try to round up technicians and get everything moving again before long.”

  She led the way down the stairs into a long tunnel. The stench was even stronger down in the tunnels, but there was no sign of sewage. “The
se are the inspection tunnels,” Pepper explained, when he asked. “We can walk through them without having to swim, I hope.”

  “Run through them,” one of the soldiers said. “I can hear something.”

  The President tensed. There was a faint scraping coming from high above them, back where they’d entered the building. The aliens…or a refugee trying to escape? There was no way to know. Pepper nodded and pulled at his arm, pushing him along the tunnel, followed rapidly by two of the soldiers. The third paused long enough to rig up a grenade as an unpleasant surprise for anyone following before coming after them. Great clouds of dust rose up from their footsteps, nearly causing the President to cough. They passed hundreds of inspection hatches, each one marked with warning signs in several different languages, and even a disused trolley that would have carried them to the far end in comfort, had it been working. Hours seemed to pass in the tunnel, hours marred by the flickering flashlight, raising nightmarish thoughts of being trapped down in the dark. What would they do if they ran out of light? There was no illumination in the tunnel, not even emergency lighting.

  “Nearly there,” Pepper said, encouragingly. Behind them, the President heard the sound of an explosion. Someone had tripped over the grenade. “Come on!”

  His heart was pounding inside his chest as he pushed himself to the limit. Only the thought of letting Pepper and the soldiers down kept him going, that and the knowledge that Pepper wouldn’t hesitate to encourage him with a kick to the ass if necessary. The end of the tunnel came as a surprise and he almost ran past the stairs before Pepper caught him and motioned for him to follow her up to the surface. They’d run over five miles. The President had thought that he’d kept himself in shape, but when he’d been younger, he would have laughed at such a distance.