by Morgan Rice
As he’d told Leon, it wasn’t as if he had any special skills. He wasn’t any stronger or faster than another kid his age, didn’t have any special powers, wasn’t anything different, except for the part where he could translate alien messages, and that he seemed to be immune to the aliens’ attempts to transform people.
Still, he’d promised now, and he didn’t think they’d be able to get to the tar pits without the Survivors’ help.
“It’s not far now,” Leon called out, from the head of their small convoy. He pointed to a trackway leading off from the main road, and they pulled in there together. “We can’t go any further on the bikes, or they’ll come looking for us, and some of the human guards are pretty smart.”
“Human guards?” Luna said. “As in people working with the aliens? Not converted or anything?”
“Not as far as we can see,” Leon said. “We think they’ve managed to make some kind of deal with them.”
“What, work for us and we’ll turn you into alien zombie things last?” Luna said.
“How did they even do it when they don’t talk?” Kevin wondered aloud.
“The people they convert don’t talk,” Chloe said. “I guess the actual aliens do. I mean, they contacted us with their signal. Maybe now they’re here, they worked out how to talk to people directly.”
It made a lot of sense, although the idea that people would willingly work for the aliens definitely didn’t. Maybe it was just how desperate people had gotten now, that they would believe any kind of promise, or jump at any opportunity for power.
“Come and look,” Leon said, leading the way up the trackway. “We need to work out how we’re going to do this anyway.”
Kevin and the others followed as Leon made his way upslope, to a point where it was possible to look down on what seemed to be a quarry ahead. Buildings sat at one end of it, while a fence stood around all the open parts of the perimeter.
There were people there, working hard on piles of rubble with picks, and doing other things that made no sense. Some seemed to be running obstacle courses, while others were working in front of batches of computers. There was even a kind of medical space where it seemed that several were having blood taken, or having chemicals injected.
“They’re testing them,” Chloe said.
Kevin nodded. It was the only explanation that made sense, except it didn’t make sense. Testing them for what, and why? Right then, he was less concerned with that than with the layout of the quarry below. A small number of people moved on the edges, too still in relation to the others, obviously converted. More were there wearing gas masks, and carrying guns: human guards. They stood by all of the entrances to the quarry, obviously making sure no one could escape.
Improbably, Kevin saw one of the converted people walk over to one of the masked guards, holding out something for the guard to take.
“What is that?” Kevin asked.
“It looks like a radio,” Leon said. He was looking through binoculars now, staring down at the camp as if looking for any kind of weakness.
“Maybe that’s how the aliens are communicating with the human guards?” Luna suggested. “They send messages, and the guards do what they want?”
“And if they don’t, they’re converted too,” Chloe said. “It means they have people who will do complex things for them, without their commanders having to pay attention all the time.”
Leon nudged him and passed over the pair of binoculars, pointing to a spot on the quarry floor. “That’s Barnaby, right there.”
Kevin looked, and saw a boy only a couple of years older than he was, high school age at most, with glasses and short cut, spiky hair. He was slender and not that strong looking, wearing a shirt and slacks that seemed more suited to someone far older.
“He’s kind of a geek, but he’s the cleverest kid I know of,” Leon said. “They let him into UCLA early, because he knows so much.”
Kevin could barely imagine being able to afford to go to college, let alone being clever enough to go while he was still just a kid. No wonder Leon wanted Barnaby back. The only problem was how they were going to do it.
“There are a lot of guards down there,” Kevin said. “It’s not as if we can just fight our way in.”
“If it were that easy, we would have done it by now,” Leon said.
“We need some way to get rid of them. A distraction or something,” Luna said. “Maybe if you all make a lot of noise on one side of the camp?”
Leon shook his head. “The guards only do what the radios tell them.”
“Then we need one of those radios,” Kevin said. He watched a guard break off from the camp, taking a slow walk into the surrounding hills to keep watch. “We need to get it off one of the guards without raising the alarm.”
“That’s not a problem,” Chloe said. She set off on a route that would put her right in front of the guard inside a few minutes. Kevin wasn’t sure what she was planning, but he hurried after her, hoping she knew what she was doing.
“Keep out of sight,” she said, then moved to a spot on the path and sat down clutching her ankle, just as the guard came into view.
Kevin, Luna, and Leon crouched down behind some rocks near the path. Kevin really wasn’t sure that this was a good idea, especially when the guard lifted his gun and pointed it at Chloe, but by now it was too late to change anything.
“You! Who are you and what are you doing here?” He started to move toward Chloe.
“Please don’t shoot me,” Chloe said. Kevin saw Luna creeping out from behind their hiding place, picking up a suitably large rock.
“What are you doing here?” the guard demanded again, reaching for his radio.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here, I’m… I’m just the distraction.”
The guard started to turn, and Luna stretched up to hit him over the head with the rock, hard. He collapsed as neatly as if someone had turned off some kind of switch inside him.
“I think I killed him,” Luna said, looking worried, but Kevin could see the guard’s chest rising and falling.
“No, I think he’s okay,” Kevin said. He looked over to Chloe. “That was really dangerous. You could have been hurt.”
“She could have been hurt?” Luna said. “She practically announced that I was sneaking up on him.”
“I didn’t want his gun pointing at me when you hit him,” Chloe said.
“But pointing at me was okay?” Luna said.
“We have a radio now, don’t we?” Chloe countered.
They did, and Kevin took it from the guard along with his mask. Through the radio, he could hear the voices of the other guards, along with scratchy, discordant noises that he recognized only too well as the aliens’ language. It was followed by a flat, monotone voice giving orders, and to Kevin, it was like hearing the same thing twice over. It seemed that the aliens had learned enough about human languages to translate for the people working for them.
“Operative one, bring subject twenty-six… Operative three, go to gate two.”
“Now we just need to see how convincingly we can sound like aliens,” Kevin said. He’d probably heard more of the aliens’ monotone than anyone alive. Could he copy it, at least well enough to fool a bunch of human guards?
“We need to make that distraction,” Kevin said.
Leon picked up the guard’s gun. “If I fire this, they’ll hear it.”
Kevin nodded. “Give me a couple of minutes to get to the camp, then do it. I’ll try to send as many guards as possible to check it out, so you need to get away before they come.”
“I’ll do it from further over,” Leon said. “Just get Barnaby out of there.”
Kevin nodded and went back in the direction of the camp. “Luna, do you think there’s a way through the fence?”
She nodded. “There’s always a way through, or over, or around.”
She said that with the confidence of someone who had managed to get into all kinds of places when they’d been
out exploring together. Most of those hadn’t been guarded by anything more than maybe an elderly janitor or a security guard, but this wasn’t the moment to worry about that.
They made their way down into the quarry, trying to keep to whatever cover there was.
“Here,” Luna said, pointing to a join in the fence. “See how it’s weak? If we pull hard, I think it will break.”
Kevin knew better than to question Luna’s expertise when it came to breaking into spaces they shouldn’t be in, so they waited close to the fence, and waited…
The sound of gunfire filled the air, coming from the far side of the camp. Kevin knew this was the moment. Triggering the radio, he spoke in the flattest, most alien tones he could manage.
“All operatives, this location is under attack, move to intercept the threat,” he said. “Repeat, this location is under attack. Move into the mountains and counter the threat.”
He froze in place, hoping against hope that the guards were sufficiently scared of their alien masters not to ask questions. They mostly seemed to be standing there, checking their radios, and Kevin started to think that he’d misjudged this. Of course they wouldn’t respond to a random radio message without checking. Of course they would ask questions…
Then the first of them started to run for the exit that led up into the mountains, and the next, until soon, all of them were running in the direction of the gunfire. Even some of the alien-controlled people seemed to be following, as though trying to decide what was going on.
“Quick,” Kevin said. “We don’t have much time.”
The three of them grabbed hold of the chain-link fence, pulling with all their strength. As Luna had predicted, it gave way right where it had been joined, creating a gap that wouldn’t have been big enough for an adult, but which the three of them could slip through just fine.
Kevin made his way toward the spot where Barnaby had been, and managed to pick him out of the crowd of others there. The people seemed like a strange mixture. There were some who looked like athletes or bodybuilders, some who looked more like they’d been plucked from the middle of a lab or library, and a few who seemed to be there at random. Again, Kevin had the feeling that this was all about some kind of test, but he couldn’t work out what it might be. There was no time to think about it, though; they had to find Barnaby.
“Barnaby,” he called out. “Barnaby, Leon sent us!”
The boy came forward, looking around with obvious surprise.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
Luna grabbed hold of his arm. “I’m Luna, that’s Kevin, and that’s Chloe. Great, we all know one another. Now, do you want to get out of here?”
“Um… yes?” Barnaby said. “Are you always like this?”
“Pretty much,” Kevin said. “What are they doing to you here? It looks like some kind of tests.”
“Actually, I have some fascinating ideas about—”
“Maybe we should save this until we’re outside,” Chloe suggested. Kevin nodded, and they all hurried for the fence.
They were probably halfway there when Kevin’s radio buzzed, the monotone of the aliens’ voice coming through.
“We gave no orders to you,” the voice said. “You have been tricked. Return to the site at once and deal with the intruders.” There was a brief pause. “We know it is you, Kevin McKenzie. We know your voice. We are coming for you.”
“Run!” Kevin said, throwing the stolen radio away from him.
The others didn’t need any encouragement, already starting back toward the break in the fence as fast as they could. Kevin heard shouting behind him, and saw some of the human guards coming back into the camp, raising their guns to shoot. Kevin ducked his head and ran hard for the fence as the first of the bullets whizzed past, in a crack of gunfire.
Chloe cried out ahead, falling, and Kevin ran to her. There was blood on her side and the sight of it made Kevin feel sick with the thought that she might have been hurt.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Chloe, how bad is it?”
“I think it just grazed me,” Chloe said, wincing in pain and forcing her way back to her feet. Kevin put an arm around her and they kept running.
The four of them made it to the fence, and Luna was through it before Kevin could blink, waiting on the other side for them and looking back with obvious worry. Barnaby was the next through, scrambling through to the other side and looking out of breath.
“You now,” Kevin said, pushing Chloe toward the gap. She went through and Kevin followed last, more bullets pinging off the rocks around them. They scrambled along the slope, heading for the spot where the bikes were.
He could see them ahead now, the Survivors waiting with them, their weapons out to repel any enemies who came too close. Just a little further and…
Kevin turned at the sound of crunching gravel, and one of the people the aliens controlled sprang from further up the slope, heading straight for Chloe and Luna, its mouth already open to breathe out vapor. Kevin did the only thing he could then, and threw himself at the creature.
He slammed into it with what weight he had, and it breathed out vapor at him, the cloud making him cough and choke, but not doing more than that. The creature grabbed at him, moving to fling him aside, to strike at him, and Kevin clung to it, not giving it any space in which to do damage to him. He spun around with it, trying to at least slow it down enough that the others could get away.
He felt his foot slip on the slope and then the two of them were tumbling.
The world spun around Kevin, right way up, then wrong way, over and over again. Somewhere in the fall, the alien lost its grip on him, and the two tumbled apart, like two balls bounced in different directions in a pinball machine. Kevin saw the creature tumble away, heard the crack of bones, and saw it stop moving. Kevin felt rocks thudding into his body, and he could feel pain blossoming through him as he hit the ground again and again. He continued to tumble, the world impossible to keep up with as it spun.
Then he hit something at the bottom, and he didn’t have to keep up with anything at all as he passed out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kevin groaned as he woke, feeling every part of him hurt. His head felt as though it was going to explode right then, the world around him filled with lights and colors. His body shook, and he couldn’t stop it shaking, pain shooting through him with every movement.
“It’s okay, Kevin. You’re safe.” Luna’s voice drifted in from somewhere that seemed a long way off.
“We’re right here,” Chloe said, from somewhere nearby.
Kevin wished he could respond, but right then it felt as though his body wouldn’t do what he wanted it to. It’s a seizure, he thought to himself, I’m having a seizure. But what if it wasn’t? What if this was what he was like now? He didn’t know what his illness would do without treatment; even the doctors had been sketchy about it, saying that the condition was so rare that each case progressed in its own way. Fear filled Kevin then. What if they’d come this far, and the end result was that he was stuck somewhere, trapped inside his own body, unable to do anything?
Another horrifying thought came to Kevin: was this what it was like for the people the aliens controlled? Did they feel trapped inside themselves, looking out as if through distorting glass, unable to do anything about it?
“He’s pretty sick.” Kevin recognized Barnaby’s voice from the slave pit. “I guess the fall has triggered everything else for him. The seizure should pass though… I think.”
“You’re going to be okay, Kevin,” Chloe said. Distantly, Kevin felt her hug him.
“Chloe, you need to give him space to move,” Luna said. “You could hurt him.”
“What do you know about it?” Chloe snapped back. “I’m just—”
“We’re both worried about him,” Luna said. “He’ll be okay.”
Of course, the problem was that even if he was okay today, one day he wouldn’t be. One day, all of this would happen, and there would be n
o coming back from it. Or it would be a slower slide down into this, step by step, with no coming back. Until something like this happened, it was easy to forget that he was going to die soon. Now, though, it was all Kevin could think about.
The world seemed to take forever to come back to him. The bright colors faded out, and Kevin felt his body stilling. Not completely, but at least it felt as though he had some kind of control over it once more.
He gasped, and Luna was there with a bottle of water with a straw in it. Kevin sipped from it, and it felt like one of the best things he’d tasted. He struggled to sit up and both Luna and Chloe helped him. Looking around, Kevin saw that he was in a bed, a rocky roof suggesting that it was somewhere back in the cavern that the Survivors called home.
Barnaby and Leon were a bit further back, while Kevin could see a gaggle of the younger kids in the doorway, looking in as if trying to understand what was happening. Kevin wasn’t even sure that he did, so he wasn’t sure how they could.
Bobby was there too. He ran forward and licked Kevin’s hand.
“They’ve been staring at you since you got here,” Luna said. She turned to them. “Kevin isn’t a show-and-tell project. Go find something else to do.”
She said it with enough force that the kids there took off, most looking a little guilty as they ran away.
“It’s okay,” Kevin managed. It even took an effort to talk. “I don’t mind.”
“I do,” Luna said.
“It’s not right,” Chloe said. Kevin could see that the edges of her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. “After everything you’ve done, and you’re just… dying.”
“It’s not fair,” Luna agreed.
“I guess no one said it would be,” Kevin said.
Luna nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it. “I just guess that… well, I’d thought maybe, with all of this, everything you’re doing, there would turn out to be some way to make this better.”
A part of Kevin had kind of hoped the same thing—that this would turn out not to be the killer disease everyone thought it was, but just some symptom of being able to tune in to alien messages. He’d hoped that somewhere at the end of this there might actually be a chance to live through it. Moments like this were scary, because they reminded him that wasn’t going to happen.
