Thor’s device was beeping like crazy.
“Put that thing on vibrate before you give away our position, you nimrod!” Frog Doll stage-whispered back at him.
Thor did as requested, but his subsequent “Holy shit!” was every bit as camouflage-busting, despite the natural cover of the brush. “There are way too many lights. There can’t possibly be this many child prodigies in one place. A school maybe?”
“Los Alamos Labs might have a few prodigies, but they would hardly be overrun by them. Your device is busted or…” Frog Doll croaked. “Ribbit. Ribbit.”
“Stop trying to pass yourself off as a real frog. What has you so scared?”
“Various scans of the area suggest those prodigies are alien children. They’re like the ones Cassandra discovered on the other side of the barrier.”
“What?”
“Sorry, forgot I never taught you how to hack into sensitive military communiqués. These alien kids live for war games.”
“Cool.”
Frog Doll sighed. “So much for falling below the threshold of detection.”
“Who’s detection?”
“Leon thinks the Stage 3 civilization is bombarding Earth without even being conscious it’s there. Thinks we triggered some automated barrier wall function that kicks in if sentient life gets too close. I’m starting to think that artifact on the moon is less about clearing the way for an ever-expanding trans-galactic civilization, and more about incorporating new districts suitable to one or another sector. Owing to our relative primitiveness, we’ve been assigned a children’s toy status.”
“One more reason Leon should just surrender control of the ship to me.”
Frog doll craned his head toward him. “I’m mortified that no matter how far I sink with you, I can never quite reach the bottom of your stupidity.”
“One man’s stupidity is another man’s genius. Come on!” Thor lurched into the clearing.
“Come on where?” Frog Doll asked, leaping after him.
“The Los Alamos brain trust isn’t going to take being invaded by aliens lying down. Whatever secret nextgen tech they’re sitting on top of, it’s no match for my toy weapons. We’ve got to save them before they get themselves killed.”
“I was following your logic all the way up to the last part. The part, you know, where you forgot that the alien child technology trumps yours.”
“That’s why we’re the underdogs in this drama! Do I have to explain everything to you?”
“No, of course not. I’ll just release the insanity algorithms on my brain, like unleashing the hounds of hell, so I can catch up with you. Spare myself all kinds of clueless remarks.”
“Where are those pesky aliens hiding?” Thor asked, breathless from running hard out in the open.
The subsequent explosions started lighting up the Los Alamos compound.
“Ah, I guess that answers that question,” Thor said. “That should make finding them easy enough.”
“I’m sorry, but when running into explosions and fiery outbursts, only a Phoenix gets to say that.”
“You and your bookish aspersions. I swear, it’s my mother’s desire to make me more literary. Well, I’ll show her.”
Thor slung his rifle into the ready position. “Charge!” he shouted.
***
EARTH
HARDING COUNTY
Hailey found her face heading abruptly for the steering wheel as the car braked without warning. “It’s time for you to tone down the pep talks, Dad, before this car’s pinpoint driving makes a mess of anything but a crash dummy.”
“It wants us to tank up by siphoning gas off of this car,” Dillon explained, eying the pale blue 1962 Lincoln Continental parked against the curb they’d pulled up alongside. Defying all belief, it managed to be longer than the Ford LTD. “Mom, you want to jump out and suck that gas out. It’s suburbia. I’m sure you can find a garden hose somewhere. I think we get an extra ten points if we’re underway in less than two minutes.”
“Sure,” she said.
Hailey watched her jump over the convertible’s back seat door, springing into action. “I guess everyone needs a coping mechanism when times get this tough,” Hailey mumbled. Her mother could only cope with the end of world drama by convincing herself that they were piloting a new concept in Community Theater, combined with alternate reality gaming. She had been reassured the AI behind the ubiquitous security cameras was keeping score.
Her father, dealing with life through his own pair of rose-tinted glasses, had come up with the idea.
Hailey brought her mind back on track, only now putting two and two together. “You say the car told you to tank up? Not the other way around?”
“Yeah, yeah, it comes loaded with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic video games for the kids. Now that it has lost its internet connection—secondary to the asteroid bombardment—it’s making the most of its resources. I gotta say, these kids’ games think of everything. We’ve never been more prepared to ride out the end of the world.”
Hailey sighed. “I’m getting used to not complaining about gift horses.” The car not moving put Hailey on her guard. Her eyes scanned the terrain like a lighthouse tower. So far they hadn’t come up against anything too ugly, but this was a retirement community her father had chosen because, as it turned out, being a Brainiac scientist left room for little else. He rather liked the idea of landscaping crews taking care of all the gardening, home aides carrying in cooked food, and all the other amenities provided for the upscale retirees. He was shameless. But he wasn’t the only one in on the scam. There were a few other young couples “retiring” to the gated community for dubious reasons all their own.
Once they were beyond that gate… Hailey tried not to think about it too much.
“Hold on,” Dillon said, passing the laptop to Hailey that he’d been using to dialogue with the car’s AI through the jerry-rigged dash, much of its wires still hanging out.
“Where are you off to?” Hailey asked defensively.
“The AI likes the chances of me finding a shotgun or two inside this house.”
“Based on what?”
“That would be the cannon in the front yard.”
Hailey panned to it, startled. “You’re likely to find the rest of the civil war paraphernalia inside. Finding a musket that can’t shoot straight is not worth settling into a life of crime just yet.”
He shook his head. “I should have raised you better. I’m sorry, I just was more of an optimist as regards the future. I thought the transhumanists would have us in immortal, low-maintenance bodies by now, and we’d all be living off UBI checks enjoying monthly incomes that doubled every month or so off of the enhanced productivity of AGIs, who for sure would be running corporations and governments around the world.”
Hailey snorted. At least her father hadn’t condescended to her by spelling out UBI was short for “universal basic income” and AGIs was short for “Artificial General Intelligences.” “Well, don’t sell the future short, Dad. The apocalypse isn’t what it used to be, not with all the tech they have bottled up at Los Alamos that can scan and upload us to digital form, then download us again to bioprinted bodies, and all the rest.”
“They have that!”
“Well, it’s for the soldiers, in case our backs are up against the wall.”
“Except,” Dillon remarked, “you’re probably the only one who knows what’s really possible with present-day tech, the truth that the government and corporations are hiding from us.”
“That might be a good thing, Dad, in this climate. I guess what I’m saying is it’s too early to give up on hope yet.”
***
Dad, tanked up on hope, headed toward the house, as mom worked on getting their car tanked up on gasoline; she’d found the garden hose she needed. She was cutting it into a more manageable section with the help of a pair of garden shears. Only Special Forces guys came more equipped to deal with disaster than suburbanites; these guys
had a tool for everything.
The thought bolstered Dillon as he elbowed his way inside the house through the window, shattering it just loud enough to leave a resonance that was still a few decibels below your typical doorbell.
He found an old man in a wheelchair inside staring at him. “Well, of all the nerve!” the geezer said. “It’s the end of the world, son. You could at least have the decency to knock. I’ll never beat the rush to Lowe’s for a replacement window as hooligans take to the streets.”
Dillon smiled at his impeccable logic. A finely tuned mind was a thing of beauty, whatever horsepower lay under the hood. “I’m afraid I need whatever is in your gun cabinet of any interest.”
“What are you planning on fending off?”
“Possible alien invasion. I’m a worst-case scenario guy, and my car’s video game designers, consulting me on end-of-world scenarios, say I should probably consider this one.”
“Well, in that case, you’ll want the assault rifles that can double as grenade launchers and laser cannons.” He wheeled himself to the gun cabinet, worked the combination, and swung the door wide.
“You keep the gun cabinet in the living room?” Dillon was too flabbergasted to possibly avoid sounding condescending.
“I keep one in every room. When you’re in a wheel chair you never know where you’re going to be when trouble strikes.”
“Thank God for Republicans.”
“Don’t Republican me. I didn’t vote for that idiot in office now. He’s probably the one that sold us out to the aliens. The man is just spineless enough to embolden a jelly fish.”
He handed Dillon one of the assault rifles. “Here, try this one on for size.”
Dillon worked the grip, the scope, checked how to engage the various alternative arsenals it was capable of.
“It’s nuclear powered,” the old man assured him. “So you never have to worry about running out of laser power.” He handed him a six-pack of magazines loaded with bullets, and a belt of grenades for the grenade launcher part of the rifle—the underbarrel. “A belt with traditional explosives that will just take down a building,” the old man explained. He threw another armaments belt at Dillon. “And a belt for the dirty-nukes. Nasty stuff. Better be upwind when you let loose one of those babies.”
As eye catching as the weapon and its shells were, Dillon figured the old man’s remark deserved an eyeball to eyeball check. “You’re what, ex-military?”
“I just shop on E-bay, son, same as everybody else. You’d be surprised what an enterprising fellow can find on the internet these days. The Chinese will sell you anything, not just last year’s tech, either, the way the Americans do.”
“I’d feel better if these things didn’t say ‘made in China’.”
The old man waved him off, before wheeling himself to his next way station. “These days, it’s ‘made in America’ you want to be concerned about.”
Dillon frowned. “And me mistaking you for one of those flag waving patriots.”
“I am! I have a flag to wave for any country you can think of who might possibly invade us. You can never be too prepared.”
Dillon smiled. “That it? I find myself still coming up short on confidence.”
“Who else is in your party?”
“An eleven year old girl—a child prodigy. And my wife, a vet—I mean veterinarian.”
“Well, that helps me winnow things a bit.” The old man slammed the vault closed on a whole slew of other weapons, wheeled himself into the bathroom. “I find young girls love costume jewelry,” he shouted.
He wheeled himself out a moment later with handfuls of gaudy necklaces, bracelets, earrings, waist belts.
Dillon eyed the stockpile in his lap. “She was never one to doll up, not even for church, far less the alien apocalypse.”
“The beads are some of the most advanced explosives the special ops guys have access to. They make the ones in your hands there look like an afterthought. As for the earrings and belt… Well, discovery is half the fun.”
Dillon eyed the kitchen counter and the bag of groceries on it that still hadn’t been put away yet. The codger was likely still waiting for his in-house aide to arrive, who surely never would now.
Dillon emptied the brown bag and refilled it with the costume jewelry. “You want me to put away the food on the counter?”
The old man waved him off. “I plan on eating raw alien, the moment they step through the door.”
Dillon smiled. “Pity we can’t take you along. I could use the comic relief.”
The wiry-framed old man, paradoxically frail-looking and made of iron, with a thick head of white hair, wheeled himself to another one of his cabinets, this one a piece of cherry furniture. A display case that should have held dishes and the rest of the fine china. “Not to sound sexist, but I recommend going light for the wife,” Wheelchair Bound said. “Unless she has military training and the fitness to go with it, she’s going to get tired packing around a lot of hardware.”
“I’m sure she’ll forgive you—in time. What are you thinking?”
The old man whistled.
The Belgian shepherd sprinted down the stairs—it still hadn’t barked. “Military trained,” the old man said, “to the tune of six-hundred-thousand dollars. He knows a hundred and fifty sign language commands. A couple thousand verbal commands.”
The dog sat at Dillon’s heals, interestingly enough, as if he already knew where he was headed and why.
The old man tossed Dillon the booklet with all the commands from the drawer that pulled out from the cabinet, just below where the dishes should be. “Hope the wife learns fast.”
“My daughter is the one with the eidetic memory. I suppose she can help her mother out.”
“She may not have to help her out much. The dog is very smart. He can read faces and body language better than most people.”
“Aren’t you leaving yourself a little vulnerable?” Dillon asked.
The old man gave him another dismissive wave. “I have three more dogs. I’d let you take them all, but you’d never fit them in your car.” He wheeled himself to the front of the house and took another sneak peek out the window by pulling back the curtains. “I have a lot of fight left in me, but tethering those animals to me in this wheelchair… It’s not fair to them; a complete waste of talent.”
“I don’t know how to begin to thank you.”
“Go give those aliens hell. And if you get to feeling down on yourself, like all is lost, well, you just think of me, stuck in here, trying to change my own diapers. This world isn’t for wimps.”
“I’m going to miss you, Old Man.”
“Yeah, well, people bond pretty fast in times of war. I guess you gotta take the good with the bad.”
Dillon stood at attention and saluted him.
“Dismissed, soldier,” the old man said.
When Dillon looked back, halfway to the car, forgetting about the dog entirely, the old man was dropping the blinds and rolling away from the window, the dog was by Dillon’s side. Whatever was in that particular whistle the old man made to the dog, it conveyed a lot more than ‘come hither.’
The dog jumped in the backseat next to mom and laid its head on her lap.
“And who’ve we got here?” she said affectionately to the dog. She was already tearing up. They’d lost their latest dog recently, and she hadn’t been ready to move on to another just yet. Dillon thought she might be reconsidering that now.
Dillon handed her the booklet with the shepherd’s set of commands. She petted the animal’s head with one hand, and flipped through the book with the other. “Oh my God, Dillon. This dog is smarter than I am.”
She flipped another page. “I swear, no matter what, I can’t climb up from the bottom intellectual rung in this family.”
Hailey and Dillon bit their lips, sharing a smile, as the autonav put the car in gear and sped off with them. The needle on the tank was showing full. Dillon smelled additional fuel, no dou
bt from five gallon drums, coming from the trunk. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that idea, in the event they got rear-ended. But he supposed soon enough gas would be difficult to find, as everyone would be thinking the same thing—scavenge what you can, where you can, from who you can.
The wife hadn’t said anything about him riding shotgun—literally. Hailey pawed through the costume jewelry, outfitting herself. She’d already guessed as to its true nature. Dillon rested the rifle on the dash, and took the laptop back. He wasn’t about to give up his favorite coping mechanism just yet. If it weren’t for the car’s AI, he’d be working with a hundred fifty less IQ points than normal, instead of just a hundred IQ points subpar.
His daughter, checking herself in the rearview mirror, said, “Nextgen explosives?”
“Et al,” her father replied, keeping his eyes on the road.
“I guess you called that one.” She threw the military-trained shepherd a look in the rearview mirror. “In an Age of Madness, thank God for the lunatics.”
The car sped on in the darkness of night, heading toward the gated exit—and to a far more terrifying world beyond.
Was that the theme of this drama they were living out? “The boldest moves are the safest?” They would soon put that idea to the test, see if the English lord who’d uttered those words was full of shit or not.
The Ford LTD’s lights were still out. Dillon hadn’t thought to ransack the old man’s garage for what he needed to fix the car. But Dillon could rest assured the street lamps would continue to light the way, at least as far as the locked gate of the retirement community. After that, the falling meteors blazing through the skies would have to do. They had proven far more predictable than the street lamps, some of which were out, understandably. They weren’t rated for meteor bombardment.
Dillon shuddered again at the thought that Hailey might be right about the meteors’ significance vis-à-vis him. The meteors did seem to follow his little party as he moved across the terrain of New Mexico. What’s more, she’d been right about everything else so far.
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