The Never Army

by Hodges, T. Ellery

  At first, she thought the remaining agents were losing their collective calm, giving into panic like passengers on a crashing plane. But she wasn’t hearing prayers or panicked screams. She wasn’t being trampled by people fleeing in the dark.

  No, she was hearing gunfire. Agents under attack.

  What?

  Under the cover of darkness, convinced they were living their last few moments—they had dropped their vigilance. The moment the lights had gone out, had Jonathan’s people come through the doors?

  She could hear the screams of fear. They began close but rapidly fled away as agents were singled out and pulled into the darkness.

  If they were all just going to die why did it seem that Jonathan’s people were still finishing off Olivia’s agents?

  A strange thought to rekindle hope but she clung to it.

  In fact, this should have been over by now. They should have become one with the universe in a fiery explosion or been crushed by falling debris. Yet, neither had happened.

  This . . . this was all misdirection.

  Slow to realize the same, the few remaining agents were switching on flashlights. Beams of light occasionally caught glimpses of their allies. It was like a horror movie come to life. The lights making agents visible just long enough to see them dragged suddenly into the darkness by something too fast to clearly make out.

  Guns began to fire with less and less discretion.

  Leah could feel bullets pass her in the darkness, striking surfaces dangerously close. Instinct kicked in, screaming for her to throw herself to the ground, but before she could obey, a concussive force hit one of the chamber’s walls and jarred her off her feet. She was still anchored to Rivers by their leash. In the darkness, she could hardly see where she landed.

  In the cacophony, she heard one sound more ominous than all the rest. Cement breaking. The sound of one of the chamber’s walls cracking inward. Then came a second massive crash. The entire room lurched as the wall collapsed into the chamber.

  Leah was pelted by debris and a sudden rush of cold night air that swept into the chamber. The air quickly grew thick with dust, but also the scent of mud and deep earth. She rolled onto her stomach, forced to put her weight on her elbows by the pull of Rivers on the other end of the rope.

  Suddenly, there was light. Enough for her to see.

  She stared upwards as something massive came through the wall, its surface a bending mirror of undulating movement. There wasn’t more light in the room, but what was already there was now being reflected around the chamber by this . . .

  She didn’t know what it was.

  Reflections distorted on its moving liquid surface, Leah could see the agents with flashlights behind her, the occasional blaze of discharge from a barrel as someone opened fire. She watched in awe as the reflective surface began to take new shape in front of her.

  This thing—a giant worm of liquid mirror—didn’t belong in the real world. It belonged in a movie trying to kill Godzilla. It seemed to be morphing, smoothing out from a shape that had been like a drill and forming a massive cavity. Something more like a . . .

  A mouth, she realized.

  The agents turned their remaining bullets on the monstrosity. The spent rounds seeming to fall to the floor without so much as blemishing the worm’s exterior. When the mouth finished forming, the worm lurched forward. It didn’t launch at any of the agents. If anything, it avoided them. Rather, it swallowed the entire shell holding The Mark prisoner.

  The worm had passed within feet of her, so close she could see her distorted reflection looking back at her on its surface. She heard the alien’s shell ripping free of the foundation, watched as it undulated like a snake to swallow the egg further into itself.

  Despite its beauty, it was dangerous. Temporary awe gave way to survival once again. She had to put more space between her and this thing. Getting onto her feet while restrained was difficult. As she managed to get her knees under her, she suddenly felt a stabbing pain on the outside of her arm that sent her right back down to the ground. She screamed uselessly against the gag, feeling warm blood run down her arm.

  A bullet must have grazed her. Leah felt a pull, the rope between her and Rivers losing any slack. She turned, expecting to see Rivers trying to get on his feet, but . . .

  Jonathan’s face emerged. There was no fear in his eyes as he knelt in front of her. He lifted her until they were face to face on their knees. One arm took hold of her around the waist and tightened, pulling her against him.

  The ground lurched again as the massive worm retreated out of the chamber. Behind Jonathan, she could see it slipping back the way it had come. He didn’t seem concerned by the massive monster but held her with his eyes even as his free hand jerked hard on the rope tethering her to Rivers.

  Agent Rivers must have managed to get to his feet despite being blindfolded and having his hands tied behind him, but he wasn’t ready for the sudden pull. Jonathan—he didn’t even bother looking—knew exactly how cause and effect would play out. Rivers stumbled backward, tripped, and came falling out of darkness until he landed gracelessly on his rear. Jonathan let go of the rope and used the free arm to grab hold of Rivers.

  She heard him speak. “Mr. Clean, we’re good here.”

  A harsh light hit them, came out of the dark from the same direction that Rivers had fallen. She couldn’t make out her features with the light aimed on them, only saw the silhouette of Olivia staggering toward them. Her weapon drawn, aimed at them, unable to get a clean shot with Rivers in her line of fire.

  Then there suddenly was no light. Leah was pulled in every direction at once. She might have imagined it, but she could have sworn a shriek of Olivia’s rage chased them into the maelstrom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  OCT 15, 2005 | 11 PM | HANGMAN’S TREE

  THE THREE APPEARED on a platform, Jonathan and Leah blinded by the blur of flood lights surrounding them. His arms relaxed, and Rivers and Leah fell away as the teleportation sickness took its toll on all of them.

  Leah’s eyes were open in pure confusion, murmuring unintelligibly beneath the gag. Rivers, still blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back, could do little more than ride the disorientation blind.

  For Jonathan, it was to be expected—anyone without an active implant got teleportation sickness following a trip on Mr. Clean’s wild ride. Understanding that condition let him ride out the world-spinning nausea with some semblance of grace as he lay on his back.

  Within a few seconds, the blurred shape of six figures in a circle around them began to take form.

  Jonathan heard the pleasant sounds of relieved laughter growing around him.

  “I almost crapped myself when Olivia handed her the detonator,” Bodhi said.

  “Yeah, no one called that in the pool,” Perth said. “Never happened before.”

  “What the hell got into her?” Tam asked. “Figured she slept with that damn thing.”

  “Anyone botch something in some new exciting way?” Bodhi asked.

  “It was my fault,” Jonathan said.

  His eyes were still closed as he laid on his back taking controlled breaths, but he heard their laughter trail. “I pushed her too hard.”

  There was a moment of silence as they considered.

  Bodhi shrugged. “Well, it only threw off our timing a bit. We adapted.”

  “No fatalities,” Beo added, “but man—”

  He stopped suddenly. “Hey, Jonathan, you alright? You’re bleeding.”

  Jonathan tightened his eyes against another wave of nausea. “Not my blood. Leah was grazed. Need to take her to Medical. Put Rivers in the brig with Morgan and let him cool off for a bit.”

  “On it,” Perth said.

  “Wait,” Jonathan forced himself to sit up and open his eyes. “You guys were perfect tonight.”

  He made a point of letting each of them see he meant it as he said, “Thank you.”

  They nodded back at him for a moment,
only to be interrupted when the night sky above was suddenly absent of stars, a massive shadow of a shape having appeared overhead.

  Jonathan looked up at Mr. Clean and smiled. “Alright, let’s not get too comfortable. Night ain’t over yet.”

  Beo leaned down to break the rope tethering Leah to Rivers. Her eyes watched him cautiously, though to be fair she likely couldn’t make out more than his blur being larger than the other five as he stepped toward her.

  Awkwardly, Beo nudged Mito, looking down at his massive meaty hands as though he didn’t trust himself to pick up a steel girder let alone a human being. With a roll of his eyes, Mito gently picked Leah up and the two headed out. They were followed out by Tam and Perth carrying Rivers between them.

  “You need anything from me?” Bodhi asked.

  Jonathan smiled up at him and put his hand out. “Yeah, help a guy up?”

  When Jonathan was standing, Bodhi gave him a supporting arm to lean on until the sickness had finally passed.

  “I assume everything went as planned with the other teams?” Jonathan asked.

  “Like clockwork. You were right, once The Cell realized that everyone they’d been tracking was vanishing, they panicked and pulled you out of the shell for . . .”

  Bodhi trailed off. “You knew that though.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “How are my friends coping?”

  Bodhi shrugged. “Not sure. They were taken to the quarters we set aside. I know you said they weren’t to be treated like prisoners, but . . . well, until someone gives them a clue what they’re into, we figured it best not to let them roam around.”

  Jonathan paused. “So, who is watching them?”

  “Rourke,” Bodhi said.

  Jonathan gave a smirk. “Rourke doesn’t speak English.”

  “Yeah,” Bodhi said, clearly amused.

  Jonathan shook his head. “Well, at least he won’t understand the names Paige is likely calling him by now.”

  Bodhi shrugged. “Rourke es Russian,” doing a purposely terrible imitation of the man’s accent. “Mean words of little boys and girls no scare him.”

  Jonathan took a few tentative steps on his own to make sure he’d recovered before leaving the platform with Bodhi following. His features darkening shortly afterward.

  “. . . and Rylee’s father?”

  “Um, yeah, he’s asking to talk to you,” Bodhi said. “Shane is watching him and Colonel Hamill.”

  A few minutes earlier, Collin and Hayden had arrived on that same platform. Rourke had been there waiting for them to recover from the teleportation sickness, their clothes growing damp from a small drizzle beneath the night sky.

  “Follow, now,” Rourke said, when they were recovered enough to stand on their own.

  Once they stepped off the platform and passed the ring of floodlights, they saw they were standing in a forest clearing. Though hard to see clearly at night, outside the clearing the trees seemed to stretch beyond their sight in every direction. Within the clearing there seemed to be a number of structures, but at the moment Hayden and Collin could only make out those that Rourke was leading them to. Not far ahead, there were rows and rows of cargo containers stacked four high.

  They hadn’t reached those stacks when the drizzle stopped so abruptly that it was as though they’d walked under an awning. About the same time Hayden felt Collin’s graceless finger poke him in the cheek.

  Slapping the man’s hand away, Hayden stopped short before asking what had gotten into him, because Collin was staring up at the sky in a trance.

  Hayden frowned and looked for himself. “What . . . what is that?”

  “Da, eto Mr. Clean,” Rourke said, though his voice held none of their awe. As though he’d seen what they were seeing so many times that the novelty had worn off.

  Hayden swapped a look with Collin, both seeming to wonder if perhaps something was lost in translation. The only part they’d understood had to do with toilet bowl cleaner and neither could imagine what that had to do with what was happening above.

  At first, the moon and stars had seemed to disappear. Soon, he realized that they were only hidden by something large floating over the tree line. Then a strange beauty began above. The massive black disc spread in all directions. It curved down, forming a dome that would swallow everything inside the clearing. The solid black surface blurred, first becoming opaque and finally translucent.

  Peering through this, the stars and moon swayed in a manner more vibrant than nature alone was capable. Colors smeared across its surface, stretched and bent the light. Hayden felt he was standing beneath a living canvas of an impressionist’s painting. Collin’s take, while no less awed, was far less eloquent. “It’s like we’re in a giant soap bubble.”

  As the dome reached the clearing floor the sway of the wind, the sound of chirping crickets and falling rain were suddenly gone. The dome continued to thin, losing more of its fluid nature. Lines, hard angles, and flat surfaces began emerging, until what had been a massive soap bubble began to look more like an equally massive and ghostly greenhouse. Rain streamed down the outside to gather in puddles on its surfaces. The stars and moon reclaimed their natural appearance, as the ceiling above them became more like solid glass.

  Slowly at first, the structures lost their transparency. The more familiar designs of scaffolding, rafters, and supports emerged. Soon, they were standing in a building with architecture far less alien and growing more mundanely human by the second.

  Hayden stepped back as a disturbance, gentle as a string pulled out from under a boot, passed underfoot and drew his eye to the ground. There, a faint echo of what had occurred in the sky spread over the forest floor.

  He startled and rebalanced himself when the ground moved beneath him. Eyes widening as he looked down to see he stood on what appeared to be a rising platform of glass, his feet getting further and further away from the forest floor. The clearing that had possessed the natural ups and downs of a woodland meadow became a level foundation. Just as the sky had a moment earlier, the transparency gave way to a plain wash of polished grey.

  Structures rose from out of the floor and down from the ceiling. Shapes like staircases, catwalks, massive interior walls emerging.

  Suddenly, just as everything seemed to still, lights came on above them.

  Hayden looked around in utter disbelief, the awe of what had sprung into being around them abruptly evaporating in sheer disappointment. This time, Collin’s take felt apt. “All that . . . and we might as well be standing in a Costco.”

  “A bit of a let down on the surface,” said a voice from behind them.

  Having been rather enamored with all the changes happening around them, Hayden hadn’t noticed Anthony coming toward them. The man slowed to be polite but seemed on his way somewhere else.

  “Mr. Clean can spread himself pretty thin,” the man said. “He’s still adapting himself to human habitation.”

  Collin and Hayden exchanged another frown; clearly the problem wasn’t that neither of them spoke Russian. What was it with these people and cleaning products?

  “Who are you people? What . . . what is this place?” Hayden asked.

  “My name is Anthony. This place, we call it Hangman’s Tree. It’s private property. Only a few dirt roads in and out, land’s been made to appear undeveloped on any maps.”

  Anthony had to turn around and speak to them while walking backwards at this point. “The explanation you’re really looking for is a bit longer than I can give at the moment. But there will be time. What’s important is you’re safe, miles away from where you were being held prisoner, and we get excellent Wi-Fi.”

  Hayden desperately wanted Anthony to stick around and explain more, but he could see that the man had somewhere to be. “Wait, where is Jonathan?”

  Already starting to turn around. “Safe. He’ll check on you the first chance he gets. Just try to be patient. He’s got a lot on his plate.”

  With that, Anthony was gone. Hayden and Collin
, hungry for answers, were already beginning to follow, until Rourke stepped in their path with a shake of his head. “Sleduyte za mnoy.”

  They had no idea what that meant, but it wasn’t hard to infer that Rourke clearly wanted them headed in a different direction.

  “Think they’re leaving us with a guy who doesn’t speak English on purpose?” Collin asked.

  “I haven’t been threatened, strip searched, handcuffed, or had my head put in a bag. My standards are pretty low at this point, but I’m not about to complain.”

  Admittedly they could only see a fraction of this place from where they were, but there was now plenty of light. Strangely, the source appeared to be everyday fluorescent bulbs hanging between rafters and the crisscrossing catwalks that ran overhead. Shapes that had previously been obscured, now far less mysterious. A lot of what the clearing had held was now inside.

  Rourke was escorting them through row after row of cargo containers. Except now they looked less like a shipping yard and more like massive industrial motels. The metal catwalks and staircases led down to platforms that spanned the cargo containers on each level. It was rather like a system of fire escapes that would lead anywhere in the building . . . assuming one had the permission to use them.

  For a while, there were echoing silences that gave the impression the entire place was sparsely populated. They only saw a few other men. Unlike Anthony, none stopped to talk; they nodded to Rourke as he passed but showed little interest in Collin or Hayden.

  About the time they followed Rourke up one of the staircases, they heard machinery from the opposite end of the complex. A sound like grinding metal that lasted a few seconds, followed by a heavy thud. Frankly, it sounded like someone had lifted a car, cut a fourth off, and let the piece drop on the concrete. While they were curious what was causing that ruckus, Rourke paid it no mind.

  Eventually, Rourke brought them up to a door on the fourth story landing of one of the cargo container stacks. The moment he held it open for them, they recognized the voice of who was shouting inside.

  “Stop telling me you can’t answer my questions,” Paige said. “I want to know where the hell Shane took Evelyn.”