by N. W. Harris
A map appeared on the screen, showing ten different arrows spreading away from Pelros’ current position.
“As we take control of each region, we will drop more syringes for the new recruits,” Athos continued. “In theory, the harvest will hit an exponential growth, and we will recruit every human on the east side of the North American continent within two weeks.”
The image zoomed out, showing the entire planet. A wave of red spread away from Atlanta and encircled the globe. Pelros’ excitement increased. He’d seen the effect of the experiment firsthand. In less than an hour, his small team had managed to recruit thousands of new slaves. The picture returned to the general.
“The humans who were with you on this mission will be in charge of a contingent of one thousand secondary slaves each. As they gain new recruits, the used ones will fall under the control of the next group of slave soldiers, who will be charged with rebuilding the planet’s infrastructure so we can feed and house the recruits.”
“Will any more citizen soldiers be provided to assist?” Pelros asked.
“Not at this time,” his uncle replied.
Pelros sensed Athos’ goal was to keep him in the limelight for as long as possible.
“While we are willing to overlook General Athos’ unapproved up-scaling of this experiment,” Kilnasis added, his pause a clear warning to Athos, “we can’t risk any more citizens’ lives on this harvest until we are certain the humans won’t turn on us again.”
“I understand.” Pelros replied, struggling to sound emotionless.
He was certain his uncle had anticipated and planned for everything. Athos wanted Pelros to succeed, and he’d opened every door to make it possible. After this mission, the reward for his efforts would be realized. With each passing second, Pelros earned more credit for the harvest. He was making everyone rich, and they were forgetting who his father was. Pelros was becoming the most popular citizen on the Pegasus.
Kelly surveyed the football field and stadium around her. Most of the teens they’d captured with plasma rifles or who had been stuck by one of the syringes were gone. They’d charged out of the stadium with fistfuls of syringes to attack the teens who had not been injected. After they ran out of targets, the grimy kids stood motionless, awaiting their next order. Heads tilted back and empty eyes on the sky, their mouths hung slack and open. They looked like they were dead on their feet.
An agonizing groan came from her slave persona. She raised her hands to her head and dropped to her knees. Jules rushed to her, catching her as she fell to the ground.
“Return to your post,” a Shock Troop soldier ordered, squatting next to Kelly.
“Yes, sir,” Jules’ replied.
Another Anunnaki soldier helped the first one lift Kelly and carry her into the transport.
For the next half hour, Kelly’s body was immobile, her eyes open. She lay on her back, staring at the overhead of the transport. The persona in charge of her body seemed to be unconscious or paralyzed. She jumped on the opportunity to regain control, hoping somehow she could use whatever had happened to her slave persona against her.
Kelly pushed herself out into her limp arms and legs. She could feel them, but they wouldn’t move. Clearing her mind, she focused on moving her hand, demanding that her muscles contract. Her index finger twitched, and it seemed to be her doing. Excitement giving her strength, she doubled her effort, trying to make a fist.
A chill hit her, as if she’d opened the front door wearing pajamas on the coldest day of winter, shattering her focus. The cold didn’t stop at her skin; it passed through her, scraping across every nerve in her body. She sat up, stunned. When she tried to move again, any progress she’d made with her hand was severed. The slave persona was awake and in charge.
“What happened?” Pelros asked. He’d been standing over her and looking on with the concern of a kid whose favorite toy was broken as the soldiers scanned her.
“I don’t know,” Kelly replied. “It felt like my head was being electrocuted, and then I passed out.”
“Are you functional?” the alien asked her. “Can your return to your post?”
“Yes sir, I believe so,” Kelly replied.
He nodded for her to do so, and she left the transport and took her position next to Jules.
“Listen up,” Pelros said, coming out of the craft. “I have our orders.”
Kelly turned so she could keep her attention on Pelros and the stadium at the same time and noticed the other teens on the squad do the same.
“We have exceeded all expectations on this mission, rescuing thousands of humans from the disease infected upon you by our common enemy,” Pelros began, looking at each of them in turn. “Because of our success, we are going to continue the mission and spread the vaccine. We are going to save more people.”
His eyes paused on Kelly. There was something different in his glance than she’d noticed before. She’d saved his life, and he appeared grateful. If he only knew, Kelly would’ve helped the boys kill him had she control of her body. She would have ripped one of the steel bars from their hands and shoved it through his skull.
Hatred boiled in her, more than ever before. Her sister was not far enough away—she was no longer safe. And now, Kelly and the others had helped the Anunnaki recruit an army. Her protective instincts fueled her rage.
“I’m dividing the new recruits between you,” Pelros continued, pacing in front of the humans on his team. “One group will head south. Two will head west, and the rest will fan out to the north. I’ll be flying between you, distributing new darts for your recruits. With this strategy, we should be able to inoculate all the humans on the East Coast of this continent in less than two weeks.”
Pelros stepped up onto the transport’s ramp. He looked at each of them, his brow furrowed with sincerity.
“You saw the kids who attacked us in this stadium,” he somberly said. “They were starving. They were killing each other. Your efforts here today saved them.”
It was the same propaganda the Anunnaki had fed them since they first entered the recruit ship. They already had control of the humans via their slave genes, but they wanted their victims to believe that they acted on their own free will. They wanted the slaves to fight as if they fought for their home. The constant flow of lies made her all the more disgusted with the arrogant aliens.
“You are the spearhead of a mission that will save your entire planet,” Pelros concluded. “Your orders have been uploaded. The future of your species depends upon you.”
It sounded too much like what Jones and Lily had said to her.
“Sir,” Kelly hesitantly said.
“Yes,” Pelros replied, appearing surprised that any of them would speak up.
“When I was unconscious, I had some sort of dream of a place to the north of this location,” she said.
Kelly’s blood ran cold.
“Go on,” Pelros urged, sounding impatient.
“It’s vague, I only remember a little,” she continued. “I can’t give much detail, but I think those responsible for destroying the other ships may be hiding there.”
“Interesting,” Pelros said. He glanced at the other Shock Troop soldiers, as if hoping they’d advise him on what to do with this bit of information.
Terror gripped Kelly. It sounded like her slave persona had somehow accessed her memories. Pelros’ Shock Troop soldiers returned his glances but had nothing to say. Kelly prayed the alien would dismiss the issue. If her slave persona gained access to her real memories, all would be lost.
The officer looked back and forth at them a moment longer, then turned his attention to Kelly as if he’d come to a conclusion.
“You’ll be heading north,” he said. “Follow your instincts. If they lead you to the enemy, you will be crowned a hero to your people and mine.”
Kelly came to a position of attention along with the other nine armor-clad teens. They brought their arms across the
ir chests in the Anunnaki salute. Then she spun away and put her helmet on. She walked out of the stadium next to Jules, terrified that she might lead the Anunnaki to the hidden base. Her only consolation was the rebels hadn’t told them where the exact location was. She remembered flying from the farmhouse to the place hidden in the mountains, but she didn’t think she’d ever find it without the rebels’ help. Feeling terribly alone in her prison of flesh, she wondered once again if Jules and the others were conscious inside their bodies, watching all this unfold with no voice and no control.
New recruits covered the college campus. They were the same ones who acted like deranged savages before they were darted. Kelly and her enslaved friends separated and shouted orders to organize their soldiers into ranks.
They stared straight forward, their eyes conveying the emptiness of their minds. Kelly and the other humans who had been brought into the Anunnaki recruit ship were under the control of the aliens, but they also seemed to have a significant degree of autonomy. The starving teenagers swaying in front of her had been reduced to little more than an army of flesh robots.
“Attention,” Kelly’s slave persona yelled.
A portion of the kids programmed to listen to her pivoted and stood stiff, their blank stares turned in her direction.
Her counterparts called their small armies to attention, and the new recruits obeyed. Kelly waded through her group, making her way off the campus. A transparent map floated in the upper right corner of the display in her helmet, and the route out of the city was designated for her to follow.
She walked past other glassy-eyed recruits. Heading out of the city on foot, the mass of kids under her control followed her. After an hour of marching north, an alien transport passed overhead, and she looked back to see it dropping syringes on her soldiers, who eagerly scooped them up and stuffed them into pockets or carried as many as they could in their hands. As soon as the slave recruits collected the syringes, an excitement seemed to come over them, clearing the dazed expression from their faces. The orders she gave them were simple—if they had a syringe, they needed to find an uncontrolled human and stick them. They encountered a small group of kids just outside of the city, and her recruits surged forward, inoculating them within minutes.
Kelly headed north, making her way toward the mountains. Her path would lead her near Leeville. She felt nostalgic but didn’t want to see her hometown again. She missed the way it was before the adults died. Now there were only painful memories for her there.
Jules and her growing army marched alongside Kelly’s until they left the city. Then Jules headed northeast, and Kelly peeled away from her. Kelly headed toward the secret base where Nat and the other children hid. It felt like she wore a straitjacket, but Kelly fought to break free of her prison. She struggled to gain control so she could prevent the Anunnaki from finding her sister. Her body marched on, the slave persona in charge seemingly oblivious to the desperate person trapped inside.
“How much farther?” Shane asked.
“Two days at this speed,” Jones replied, not looking up from his work. He leaned over a chart in the control room of the submarine.
They’d been at sea for over a week, and the last time he got to look up at the sky and make sure the alien ship with Kelly on it was still in orbit was three days ago when they’d passed through the Straights of Gibraltar on the surface.
Pacing the control room, Shane felt like he might go mad if he didn’t get out of the sub soon. He glanced at Jones, wanting to plead with him to attempt another dream connection with Kelly. He already asked to be connected with her again, and they informed him that there was too much risk. They were working on a way for him to help her regain control of her body and wouldn’t allow him to connect with her again until they were ready to try it. They had tried to connect Tracy twice and had trouble because they had to connect them while both Jules and Tracy were asleep.
“We’ll be linking Tracy to Jules tonight,” Lily whispered.
Shane spun around. Lily had slipped into the control room behind him without his noticing. She smiled, her eyes saying she wasn’t certain if she should be telling him this. He nodded at her. Knowing they had invaded his mind without his consent when they’d linked him to Kelly still smarted, but he realized it was what had to be done. The initial connection would likely fail if Tracy knew what they were attempting. It had been so hard to keep her in the dark about the plan, but he was determined to do whatever it took to save Kelly and the others, even if it meant Tracy would hate him.
“Do you need me?” Shane’s betrayal of Tracy stabbed at his chest.
“No, but you can observe from here.” She pointed at a holographic image rising from the computer cube at a station on the right side of the control room.
Shane nodded and sat down. He didn’t look back at Lily, hearing her walk out of the control room. Tracy must be asleep in the berthing below. Dr. Blain was down there, using alien technology to invade her mind. The violation brought back all the rage he’d felt after they’d done it to him. Shane kept his seat, looking at a blurry image of Jules on the tarmac back at the hidden base where they’d been trained.
It was just after Jules had raced ahead of Shane and the others. Jules was on the asphalt, holding her knee and rocking back and forth. He realized he saw the scene through Tracy’s eyes as she ran to Jules’ aid.
“Jules,” Tracy called as she came closer. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Those scumbags,” Jules said through clenched teeth, “they tripped me.”
“Who?” Tracy demanded, anger and concern in her tone.
“The Russians,” Jules replied.
Tracy squatted beside Jules and reached down to help her sit up. When her hand touched Jules’ shoulder, both Tracy and Jules screamed, as if they’d been shocked. Then the screen went blank.
“What happened?” Shane asked, looking back at Jones.
Jones looked up from his monitor. “I’m not sure; maybe they lost the connection.”
“I’m going to check on them,” Shane said, heading to the ladder that led down to the lower level.
As soon as Shane passed below the floor of the control room, he could hear a commotion coming from the berthing. He rushed to the door and pushed it open.
“She’s having a seizure—hold her still,” Dr. Blain said.
Tracy lay on the floor, convulsing wildly. Steve pressed her shoulders down, and Lily’s fingers danced across the computers previously hidden in the bunk above Tracy’s.
“What are you doing to her?” Shane demanded.
“Trying to give her a sedative so she doesn’t hurt herself,” Dr. Blain replied. “Grab her legs.”
He rushed in and did as he was told. Even with both him and Steve grabbing onto her, they had a hard time restraining her enough so the doctor could deliver the sedation. As soon as she gave Tracy the injection, her body went limp.
“I don’t understand what went wrong,” Lily said, not taking her eyes from the computers.
“Is she okay?” Shane asked, trying to stay calm.
“Her brain wave activity is stabilizing,” Dr. Blain responded, her voice tremulous. Moving her pen-shaped medical device over Tracy’s head, she didn’t look up at him. “She’ll be fine, but she’s going to need some rest.”
“There’s a surge here.” Lily sounded like she was talking to herself. “It almost looks like another…”
She zoomed in on a squiggly line floating in front of her, projected from a computer cube. Shane guessed it represented one of his friends’ brainwaves. What had looked like a tight scribble of a line became large peaks and valleys.
“There are two patterns intermeshed with each other,” Shane observed. A sinking feeling overcame him. “What does that mean?”
“Damned by the gods,” Lily hissed. “It means Jules’ slave personality was in the dream with Jules and Tracy.”
“And?” Steve asked.
&nbs
p; “It’s possible that some memory transference has occurred. The slave might have had access to all of Jules and Tracy’s neural storage,” Lily replied. She was staring at the frozen image of the twisted brainwaves, her eyes wide with concern.
“You mean the slave Jules might’ve read Tracy’s mind?” Shane wasn’t going to let his imagination run wild. “How long were they connected? She couldn’t have seen much.”
“Not long,” Lily said. “Less than a minute.”
“So she can’t have learned anything,” Steve said.
“I thought you created the slave personalities for them,” Shane said. “Can’t you just erase anything she saw?”
“Unfortunately, once we activated them, we had to turn over full control to the enemy or else they wouldn’t have passed the scans,” Lily replied.
He returned his attention to Dr. Blain and Tracy. “You need to wake her up so we can ask her what happened in there.”
“I’m trying,” Dr. Blain replied, sounding more worried each time she spoke. “All her readings are normal, but she’s not responding. Help me lift her back into the bed.”
Shane and Steve carefully lifted Tracy off the cold floor and slid her into a bunk. He couldn’t help blaming himself. Shane could’ve stopped them from trying to connect Tracy and Jules, especially after so many failed attempts. He’d betrayed her like Steve and the others had betrayed him. It felt like the bond that had grown so strong between the members of his team was fractured. It was their camaraderie, the strength of their friendships, that had carried them through from the very beginning. This dishonesty between them was corrosive, and he intended to put an end to it.