by Mel Todd
~Everyone, everything okay?~ she asked. The thought that reporters might have figured out where they were staying in DC made her tense up.
~All quiet, though social media is exploding. You have more views than the president did. And you're going viral. I think the system is about to crash.~
She didn't have time to ask anything else as she got into the car, the driver's pale face and wide eyes catching her attention.
Doug sat there, his phone back on, but he inhaled sharply as they got in. "I don't think you fully realize how intimidating those forms are. I keep having to stop myself from fleeing in terror. And I'd always thought werewolves were cool."
McKenna smiled, then stopped when he flinched backwards. "It is a cool form. Honestly, outside our time in the jungle we haven't played with it much, so I'm not sure what other surprises are lurking." She nodded at his phone. "Is it working?"
He hefted out a sigh and pulled his attention back to the phone which was now plugged into an outlet in the back.
"Damn thing is going off so much I had to plug it in. Your message is getting out. The next few days are going to be chaotic, and we caught a lot of people off-guard with the civil defense aspect, but it wasn't like we could give them too much prep time."
~True, but still I can't imagine how crazy Kirk is going,~ she said into the mindspace, her voice somber.
~I'll lay you money he saw this coming. Remember, he knew aliens were real and coming, so this probably didn't surprise him. Bet we'll see news stories about how prepared Rossville is.~ JD's tone reassured her a bit, and she glanced at the secretary who responded to something on his phone.
"Now what?" she asked, hating how out of control all of this was. Life wasn't supposed to be this insane, was it?
"Well, the government is going to be scrambling for the next few days trying to prepare, and we'll need you here for New York. You're pretty much the only ace in the hole we have. So, I'd say button down, maybe answer questions on social media, but basically stay safe." He lifted his eyes from his phone and speared her with a glance. "McKenna, I can not say this firmly enough. You are the only advantage we have and the only chance to make this work. Your safety is paramount. There are guards nearby and other houses are being filled with agents as we speak. Right now, the fate of the planet hinges on you."
McKenna felt like she'd swallowed sand. "Got it. Stay safe and wait."
"When we're sure they're in orbit, we're going to relocate everyone to a place in New York and then try to prepare. New York is fractious at the best of times and them landing there isn't going to make it easy."
McKenna just nodded numbly, and everyone fell quiet the rest of the way home. The only bright spot in her twisting and turning thoughts was Perc holding her hand tight.
As they got out of the car, she reassessed the neighborhood and realized just how quiet it was. Being this isolated made her feel uneasy. Even at her house she'd never felt this isolated from the rest of the world.
The noise of kids squabbling over a game as she walked in brought a blessed amount of normalcy to her.
Toni met her at the door in human form and pulled her into a tight hug. Until her arms wrapped around McKenna, she hadn't realized how much she needed that humanizing gesture, that reminder that she wasn't just Kaylid. Her arms held her tight as Toni whispered in her ear.
"You did great. You were impressive and commanding."
McKenna just squeezed back then let her go to head into where she could hear the kids. They were all playing a kart video game. They glanced up at her, smiled, then shifted their attention back to the game.
McKenna laughed at the sheer normality of the scene, the video game being more important than an adult, even in warrior form.
She went back to the room where they were watching TV and paying attention to laptops, the main social media sites up.
"You're trending, if that makes you feel better," Cass said as she glanced up with a half-smile.
"Not really. You okay? I didn't mean to spring the whole immortal stuff on you."
Cass shrugged. "It makes sense once I thought I about it. If your cells are rebuilt, then they don't decay. They've known that for decades. But still is odd to think about it. But I looked the other day, a few chicken pox scars from childhood are gone, and I don' think I've had a pimple since this happened." She shrugged. "Anything else I refuse to think about until after we've dealt with the Elentrin, and that I'm just not going to deal with, period. Every time I start to think about aliens coming down here to collect us, I start to panic. And that does no one any good. So not thinking. I can't do anything about it, all I can do is try to support you."
Toni sighed. "Join the club. I really want to go find a basement and lock me and the kids in it. Like badly want. But it wouldn't change anything, and if we all did that there wouldn't be much of a world going on."
McKenna sat down and watched the drama unfold on a local and national stage and felt absolutely useless.
Not much was said the rest of the day. McKenna answered a few specific tweets asking about changing, but even though her follower list was huge, mostly she just watched people panic. LA was in the middle of a riot that spanned half the city as people freaked out even as big alien welcome parties were being thrown. It felt like she was watching a bad sci-fi movie. The stock market shut down fifteen minutes after the president's speech and most places had been swept bare of anything usable. The news focused mostly on the happenings in the US as no other country had made an announcement yet.
Going to bed that night, she lay there for a long time, wrapped in guilt and stress.
"Stop it." JD's voice pulled her from her inner turmoil and she sat up. She hadn't heard him come in, she'd been so wrapped up in her own thoughts.
"Stop what?" McKenna pulled herself into a sitting position, arms around her knees. JD dropped onto the bed, it groaning a bit under his weight.
"Stop fretting. Feeling guilty or anything else."
"So many people are going to die." She made sure the mindspace didn't hear any of this not wanting to upset anyone else.
"Yes. And you didn't cause it. Neither did our family or even Wefor. These were die cast long ago by another race that thought they could play gods. They are about to get bitten hard. Humans aren't good at giving in to pressure."
"That isn't going to stop people from dying," she said, her voice bitter and pain coating her throat.
"No, but we're doing all we can. If you can think of anything else, we can try it. But I know the rest of us have talked lately, and we can't think of anything."
"What about the dreams, visions, whatever? Can't we slip into their bodies and take control? Do something?"
JD shrugged. "I don't know. Can we?"
McKenna took the time to create a private conversation between Wefor and the two of them though it felt like everyone else had already fallen asleep.
~Wefor. How are we getting the visions? If we're really there, can we make them do something? Can we sabotage their ship with this process?~
There was a long pause, long enough that McKenna looked at JD, frowning.
[Currently there is no information to explain how you are tapping into this. The first few training sessions were normal. Those are coded into the data repository of most nanobots to make use of sleep time.]
~So why or how could this be happening?~ McKenna asked, she'd thought it was something the nanobots were doing.
[There are ways to do this, but all of them are extremely improbable. At this time there is not enough data to formulate a viable answer.]
~But we couldn't take over, actively control the bodies?~
[Have you tried already?]
~Oh yeah,~ JD rumbled, the bear echoing in his voice.
McKenna glanced at him. She'd not had as much opportunity, not getting pulled into as many of these, Wefor apparently stopping a lot of them.
[That would be proof. Nothing else exists as to how you could control these instances to do anyt
hing.]
Wefor's voice left her no hope, she bit back her desire to scream. Instead, she straightened her spine and smiled at JD. "So we continue on. Maybe we should get t-shirts - ‘Shift and Carry on'?"
He laughed, real amusement in the sound. "I don't think so. Go to bed. Tomorrow will be here soon enough." With a friendly nudge of his shoulder, he stood and left, and McKenna pulled the pillow in the strange house closer to her and tried not to cry.
Chapter 23 - First They Came
McKenna Largo's speech is creating strange effects across the world. While some nations might have ignored what the president said, McKenna Largo reached out to all the shifters and they seem to be taking her words to heart. Plywood is unavailable at most supply stores, and enrollment at self-defense boot camps has skyrocketed. Then there is what she called the warrior form. People are being caught in that form constantly, including people who no one knew were shifters. Is this real? Are we about to fight a war on US soil? What do the rest of us do when aliens may literally be coming for our neighbors? Reactions are mixed, but more than one person we interviewed has quoted the poem by Martin Niemoller - First They Came. It gives you food for thought. ~ TNN Reporter on the street.
Sleep didn't bring any relief, but it also didn't bring any dreams. McKenna had asked Wefor to not block any dreams but didn't specifically ask for them to be created.
Watching the news became an addiction for all the adults in the house. Some areas of the country rallied together, and the civil defense plans were helping. She'd sent a message to Anne checking in on people, and Anne confirmed Kirk and Marchant, the chief of police, had been ready for this, and everything moved along without too much angst.
When she let the others know, JD shook his head a smile touching his lips. "I wonder how that conversation with Marchant went before the president's speech. How do you convince your boss that aliens are here and we need to prepare for an invasion, when the rest of the world doesn't even know they're coming?"
Cass grinned. "I'm just wondering what my old boss is doing. Is it bad that I really hope he's freaking out? Especially since the higher ups are livid at him. Granted none of them really know I can shift, but they might have figured it out from the news stuff." She smirked and grabbed a snack.
They'd all been eating and eating and eating, trying to get enough mass to support multiple shifts that might be needed in the near future. But they were all sick of food. Nothing tasted good anymore, and since most of them were predators, well, JD and Cass weren't, and they could tolerate the fruits and sweets more, everything was protein and fat heavy.
McKenna glanced at the TV showing a riot in London over the news of aliens, and she sighed. "I know that probably tomorrow or the next day they'll grab me and Perc for the New York thing, though I have no idea how they're going to get that all organized. I'm glad it isn't my problem. But right now I'd like to pretend everything is normal. Some areas of the country are either rolling with this or ignoring it. Not sure which is true around here. But it's been really quiet. Do you guys want to get out of here for a while?"
Every face in the room lit up at that option, and the kids were rushing to put on shoes.
"Guess everyone has been feeling a bit stir crazy?" she remarked as everyone tore around to get ready to leave.
The house they were in was only a few blocks away from a big park with a playground, so they decided to walk to it. McKenna pulled on her kilt and a baseball cap, along with sunglasses to help disguise her. Getting mobbed didn't sound fun.
The weather seemed perfect and created an odd dichotomy from the stress in her mind and across the globe, but right now in their little corner of the world, it seemed like a gorgeous late summer day. She hid a smile as she saw JD and Cass holding hands, and Toni fell back to talk to her. By mutual unspoken agreement everyone ignored the agents in the car trailing along behind them.
"They seem to be getting along." McKenna said, nodding at the two of them who had moved up ahead while the kids ranged between the two groups. Perc had said he'd catch up with them in a bit, he'd been talking to his lawyer friend back in California, and wanted to follow up with some stuff.
"They're so cute it's almost sickening. But I like her. She's funny, very smart, and can answer all the questions the kids ask that leave me fumbling for the internet to try to figure out how to answer it. Jamie likes her, but Jessi still thinks you're cooler." Toni shot a grin at McKenna who laughed.
"That is not a good thing. From the way my life has been going lately, no one should try to emulate me."
Toni lifted a shoulder dismissively, casting a wary eye around the houses they passed, but it still seemed quiet. "Maybe. But at least we have a chance now. If they had just shown up without this much warning, we would be dead meat."
"Yeah. I'm just torn," her voice came out soft and with an admission of guilt.
"Torn? About what?" Toni dropped her voice, too, as she glanced at McKenna.
"I like changing, being the cougar, the warrior form, and I'm kind of glad it happened. But because of all that's happening people might die. It makes me feel…" she trailed off and hunched her shoulders a little, as if expecting a blow either emotional or physical.
Toni burst into laughter, and McKenna jerked to look at her. "You don't think that's awful of me?"
Toni tried to stifle her laughter that had everyone glancing back at her. "No. I think it's human. For all that we are Kaylid, we're still human. I love my cat. And knowing my children will never get sick and can live forever?" She put her hands behind her back, a grin across her face. "We can't change it or stop it, so might as well enjoy the benefits and features. You didn't cause this, you aren't the reason this happened, so enjoy the silver lining. It's all we can do."
"Oh." McKenna fell silent for a few steps, then glanced over at her. "How'd you get so calm? About stuff like this?"
Toni sighed this time, the last of the humor leaving her. "Jeff being killed. I missed him, I had two babies that would never know their dad. My best friend was gone. And I was miserable. At the same time, I had more money than I'd ever had. I had friends helping me. A job that gave me a year off and promised to hold my position. Time to spend with my children I might not have had. I really hated myself for a while for enjoying the money, the time, the good things that came behind all that pain. Realized I couldn't change any of it, and I'd give it up to have him back. But since I couldn't, why make myself and others miserable? All you can do is deal with the now. So deal with now."
The words rattled around McKenna's mind and soul as they finished the walk to the park. Part of her expected Wefor to chime in, but the AI stayed silent.
"Thanks," she said as they reached the park.
"No problem." Toni grinned at her, then ran towards her unwary kids and grabbed Jessi up from behind, swinging her around to shrieks of laughter. McKenna joined her, grabbing Nam and spinning her as the children chased away the doubts and fears that swamped the adults.
The park only had one person jogging around it, so they had it to themselves. Two hours of play left them all tired but smiling. Perc had joined them after an hour. He and JD took turns tossing the kids in the air, to the delight of the children. Nam especially seemed to glow by the time they were done.
"Dinner thoughts?" Cass asked. They'd exercised enough that food almost sounded good.
"Pizza!" The kids shouted in what had to be a planned move.
Toni crossed her arms and looked at all of them. "Uh huh. And did you have a preference?"
They shouted out again in unison the name of a pizza chain that had games and stuff for kids.
Perc arched a brow. "People really go to those? " Toni and Cass looked at him and started laughing.
"That seals it. If you've never experienced the joy that is kids, pizza, ball pits, and shrieking, your education needs to be updated," Toni said a definitely wicked grin on her face. "Think any of them will still be open?"
McKenna shrugged and turned, surveying the p
ark. The agents were under the trees, far enough away to give them the illusion of privacy, yet close enough to react if anything else happened. "Let me ask. I'd assume they would know." She headed over to the two agents, a man and a woman. They straightened as she approached.
"Hi, guys. Hope you haven't been too bored."
They gave her slight smiles. "You don't cause us as much stress as some. How can we help?" Their tone was neutral, and she didn't know how to react.
~Stupid protection stuff. I don't need it. No one knows I'm here.~
"The kids wanted to go for pizza. Is that place with all the kids' stuff open today? This area doesn't seem as panicked as other areas."
The male agent stepped back pulling up his phone, and it dawned on McKenna that with their ability to speak mind-to-mind, most of them had quit carrying phones around. Only Cass still did for her sister. That might be a problem if they didn't have their phones and Carina or someone else needed to reach them.
The female agent quirked a half-smile. "We're used to drama. Blizzards, assassinations, politics, this is just something else. We're almost British in our ability to 'carry on.'"
The parallel to her earlier thinking made her laugh, feeling some tension melt. The male agent stepped back nodding to her.
"Yes, ma'am. The nearest one is about ten miles away but it's open. Most places are still open right now."
"Excellent. Could we go there? I think we all deserve pizza, and a chance to abuse Perc who's never been to one."
Both agents looked at her, then over to the others still near the swing sets, and smirked. "Oh, this should be entertaining."
Soon enough two SUVs pulled up, everyone loaded in and their drivers headed a bit deeper into town. There were cars on the road, and lots of businesses had closed, but others, like grocery stores, seemed to be packed.
"How bad is it out there? The news implies it's pretty mixed. Not just in the US but everywhere," McKenna asked their driver.
He shot her a side look. "That's accurate. Some people don't believe, and they're the calmest. Those that do believe, well, most gun stores don't have anything left on their shelves, and emergency supplies and most box stores are all but empty, too. The factories are still producing, but most of the world seems to be waiting and watching the skies." He gave a bitter laugh. "The funny thing is, this has created the biggest economic boon seen in years, people buying perishables and protection goods. If we live through the next two weeks there are a lot of companies that will have made a lot of money."