“What’s the matter?” Thelma called.
“I lost it. I had it in my hands, all of our dreams right there in my hands, and I lost it.” His teeth were chattering uncontrollably, his body aching from the cold.
“No one could have held on. Don’t blame yourself.”
He’d had it in his hands. Now he had nothing; now he was just a drowning old man, with nothing to offer his family but boring stories of the old times.
The mournful sound of sirens rose in the distance, probably reinforcements coming to join what must already be a traffic jam of red-and-white emergency vehicles in front of the casino. They’d never slip past it, not soaking wet.
Shadows flickered through the hole he’d cut in the aliens’ floor. There were figures moving, probably trying to see down under the pier, but the surf had pushed Marty and the others a good forty feet from the hole.
“Marty?” Thelma said, sounding incredibly composed and patient given the situation. “We have to get out of here.”
“We’ll have to swim for it, get as far down the coast as we can. A quarter of a mile, if we can manage it.” Who was he kidding? His hands and feet were numb, and he was ten years younger than Thelma. They’d be lucky if they could swim a hundred feet.
Keeping his negative thoughts to himself, sunk in a black despair, Marty paddled out from under the casino into bright sunlight. The casino’s parking lot was frantic with activity. Hundreds of evacuees stood behind yellow police tape as emergency personnel raced around. A smaller group of aliens, tall and wiry, with long, curved necks and horselike noses, stood apart from the rest of the crowd.
No one noticed three old coots in the water, probably because they were so cold and weak they could barely keep their heads above the surface. Marty sputtered and coughed. He’d already swallowed a gallon of salt water. His nose and throat burned. They weren’t really swimming; they were fighting not to drown while the current carried them down the beach.
By the time they made it a few hundred yards, Marty’s arms and legs were moving like he was swimming in glue. No matter how hard he willed them to move faster, they kept slowing. The others weren’t doing much better.
“Let’s head—” That was all Marty managed. Crippling pain shot from his chest, down his arms. His teeth clamped down on the pain and he let out a gargling growl.
“Martin?” Thelma called. She sounded very far away, getting farther. “Bill, help me—something’s wrong with him.”
Marty felt hands on his back, tugging, straining to pull him toward land. His arms were clamped across his chest and wouldn’t move. He’d never felt such pain.
Thelma’s head went under. She still clutched his shirt, still struggled to push him toward shore. Bill was on the other side of him, half pushing, half clinging to Marty to keep from going under himself. They weren’t going to make it. Marty tried to tell them to save themselves, but could only let out a choking squeal.
New fingers gripped his wrist and ankle. Only they weren’t fingers—they felt like threads, like slender fishing lines. Suddenly Marty was gliding toward the beach. His face went under, his cheek dragging the sandy bottom for a moment. He broke the surface in shallow water, among gentle whitecaps rolling in toward the beach.
The black sphere was a foot from his face, moving on a hundred fine tentacles, dragging him, Thelma, and Bill into the sand.
Then it was gone, back into the water.
Thelma lifted herself to a sitting position and reached for Marty’s pocket. “Hang on, Martin. I’m calling 911. I think you had a heart attack.”
From the searing pain he’d felt in his chest, Marty thought Thelma might be right. But it was gone; it had morphed into a tightness, like a pulled muscle.
“Hang on.” He struggled, managed to sit up. “I think I’m all right.” He rotated his shoulder. “In fact, I’m sure I am. I feel—” He couldn’t put his finger on how he felt.
Bill struggled to his hands and knees, then stood in one smooth motion. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“I don’t think it’s Jesus, Mary, or Joseph.” Marty’s voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. His heart was thumping wildly. Marty had read enough about life force to know it couldn’t turn back the clock. It didn’t make you young, but it made you as alive as an old-timer could be.
Thelma stood, springing up with ease. She let out a cry of surprise.
Marty got to his feet as well. He was shivering uncontrollably, his clothes dripping, his shoes waterlogged. He felt like he could lift an elephant.
Bill grinned at him. Marty grinned back, ecstatic at the thought of having his old friend back in both mind and spirit. Alzheimer’s stood no chance against ten thousand years of life force, if that’s what that wonderful bowling ball had given them.
Then he remembered Frank. “Oh, Frank, I’m so sorry,” he muttered.
“If it wasn’t for Frank…,” Bill said.
They stood with their heads bowed, silent and motionless.
“We’d better get out of here,” Marty finally said.
They headed down the beach at a brisk walk, away from the flashing lights and the casino. They hadn’t gone a quarter mile when Marty heard a sharp whistle. He looked up at the boardwalk. Frank was standing at the railing, holding a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee.
Head down, Marty headed for the stairs. He felt like shit. He hadn’t asked Frank to take the bullet for the rest of them, but he had, and now he was on the outside looking in, and that made Marty feel like a big pile of shit.
“Tell me you did it,” Frank said. “Tell me this wasn’t all for nothing.”
Marty struggled to meet Frank’s eye. “We did it. I’m so sorry, Frank.”
Frank shushed him harshly. “Don’t say that. Let me be happy for you, for the part I played in it.”
“If it wasn’t for you, we’d be in jail right now,” Thelma said. “Thank you. I hope I can return the favor some day.”
“Me, too,” Bill chimed in. “I won’t forget.”
Marty lunged, gripped his friend in a bear hug.
“Come on,” Frank said, eyeing their wet clothes. “Let’s get you guys home. We’re outside the roadblock they set up around the casino, so it should be clear sailing from here. We’re just four old-timers out for a walk.”
“The coffee’s a nice touch,” Marty said, gesturing at Frank’s cup. “What sort of thieves stop for coffee?”
Frank handed the cup to Marty. “I’m guessing you can use it more than me. Come on.”
They followed Frank down the boardwalk. Marty tried to act like an eighty-one-year-old—frail, and slightly bewildered to be so frail. But inside, his bones and joints were singing.
He looked out at the ocean, thought he spotted a black sheen in one of the breakers, but then it vanished.
What in the hell was that creature going to do, swimming around in the ocean for just shy of eternity? Marty guessed it was better than being cooped up in a fish tank for eternity. And who knew what a thing like that needed or didn’t need? It didn’t resemble the Procyoni in any way; either they’d made it, or it was some other species entirely, and the Procyoni had enslaved it. The Procyoni seemed arrogant and greedy enough to dabble in slavery, although in truth, Marty really didn’t know shit about the Procyoni. Nobody knew shit about the Procyoni. They were secretive as hell.
There was a T-shirt shop up ahead; Marty wondered if they should duck in and buy some dry clothes, assuming the place had a dressing room. It would take time, but their wet clothes were a big, fat red light if they ran into any—
Police. Marty’s pulse jumped into overdrive as a uniformed officer stepped out of the T-shirt shop and headed their way.
“Oh, crap,” Bill said under his breath.
“I got this,” Marty said. “Get ready to go into your Alzheimer’s act.” If the Procyoni had reported the heist—and especially their creative means of escape—they were screwed. But Marty was betting the Procyoni hadn’t deigned to tell the authorit
ies anything. He was betting they wouldn’t want it to be known that four humans had gotten the better of them.
The officer slowed as he drew closer, studying their wet clothes. Marty went right up to him. “Excuse me, officer. Do you know if that shop there has a changing room?” He pointed.
“I’m not sure.” The cop was young, probably not on the job a year. “Can I ask what happened to you?”
Marty chuckled, gestured at Bill. “Well, we got my friend Bill here out of the home for the day. Turns out we picked the wrong day.” Marty cupped his mouth and stage-whispered to the cop, “He’s got the Alzheimer’s.” Bill’s bottom lip was quivering. He had that thousand-yard stare down pat. “We only took our eyes off him for a minute, and there he goes into the water. Thelma and me had to go in after him. Thelma’s Bill’s wife.”
“Hello,” Thelma said.
The officer nodded to Thelma, glanced at the cup of coffee in Marty’s hand, then seemed to relax. “My grandmother was diagnosed a couple of months ago.” He shook his head. “It’s a terrible thing.”
“It certainly is,” Thelma said.
The officer escorted them down the boardwalk and into the T-shirt shop, which did have a little changing room, as it turned out.
As they got busy finding clothes that fit (except for Bill, who tagged along behind Thelma, taking shuffling old man steps), the officer tipped his hat and said, “I hope you folks have a good day from here on out.”
“Thank you, sir,” Marty called. “We’re planning to.”
The band’s name suddenly came to him—the ones who sang, “Now you’re messing with a son of a bitch.” It was Nazareth. Marty would have given anything to flip through the T-shirt rack and discover a black Nazareth T-shirt hanging there, but what were the odds of that? He settled for Zeppelin.
Meet the Author
Will McIntosh is a Hugo award-winner and Nebula finalist whose latest novel, Defenders, has been optioned by Warner Brothers for a feature film. His previous novel, Love Minus Eighty, was named the best science fiction book of 2013 by the American Library Association, and was on both io9.com and NPR.org’s lists of the best SF novels of 2013. His debut novel, Soft Apocalypse, was a finalist for a Locus Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the Compton Crook Award. Along with four novels, he has published fifty short stories in venues such as Asimov’s, Lightspeed, and Science Fiction and Fantasy: Best of the Year. Will was a psychology professor before turning to writing full-time. He lives in Williamsburg with his wife and their five-year-old twins. You can follow him on Twitter @willmcintoshSF, or on his website, www.willmcintosh.net.
Also by Will McIntosh
Soft Apocalypse
Hitchers
Love Minus Eighty
Defenders
SHORT FICTION
The Perimeter
The Heist
Watching Over Us
City Living
If you enjoyed
THE HEIST,
look out for
DEFENDERS
by Will McIntosh
A new epic of alien invasion and human resistance by Hugo Award-winning author Will McIntosh.
Our Darkest Hour.
Our Only Hope.
The invaders came to claim earth as their own, overwhelming us with superior weapons and the ability to read our minds like open books.
Our only chance for survival was to engineer a new race of perfect soldiers to combat them. Seventeen feet tall, knowing and loving nothing but war, their minds closed to the aliens.
But these saviors could never be our servants. And what is done cannot be undone.
Prologue
Lieutenant Enrique Quinto
June 26, 2029. Morris Run, Pennsylvania.
It was a quaint Pennsylvania town, many of the buildings well over fifty years old, with green canopies shading narrow doorways. Even the town’s name was quaint: Morris Run. If not for the abandoned vehicles, filthy and faded by two years of exposure to the elements, and the trash stacked along the sidewalk, Quinto might have expected someone to step out of the Bullfrog Brewhouse and wave hello.
“Lieutenant Lucky?” Quinto turned to see Macalena, his platoon sergeant, making his way to the front of the carrier. Quinto wished he’d said something the first time someone called him Lucky, but it was far too late now. Most of the troops he was leading today probably didn’t know his real name.
“One of the new guys shit his pants,” Macalena said when he drew close, his voice low, giving Quinto a whiff of his sour breath.
Quinto sighed heavily. “Oh, hell.”
“The kid’s scared to death. He hasn’t been out of Philadelphia since this started.”
“No, I don’t blame him.” Quinto looked over Macalena’s shoulder, saw the kid perched on the side of the carrier, head down. He was about fourteen. The poor kid didn’t belong out here. Not that Quinto couldn’t use him; they called raw recruits “fish food,” but sometimes they were surprisingly effective in a firefight, because they were too scared to think. The starfish could get less of a read on what they were going to do, which way they were going to point their rifles. Usually the newbies didn’t shit their pants until the shooting started, though. “Does he have a spare pair?”
Macalena shook his head. “That’s the only pair he owns.”
Quinto reached into his pack, pulled out a pair of fatigue pants, and handed them to Macalena. “I hope he’s got a belt.”
Macalena laughed, stuck the pants under his armpit, and headed toward the kid.
What an awful thing, to be out here at fourteen, fifteen. When Quinto was fourteen, he’d spent his days playing video games, shooting bad guys in his room while Mom fetched fruit juice and chocolate chip cookies and told him when to go to bed.
They reached the end of the little downtown, which was composed of that single road, and the landscape opened up, revealing pine forest, the occasional house, mountains rising up on all horizons. There was little reason for any Luyten to be within eight miles of this abandoned backwater town, but they were all out there somewhere, so there was always a chance they’d be detected.
Quinto tried to access his helmet’s topographical maps, but the signal still wasn’t coming through. He pulled the old hard copy from his pack, unfolded it.
The carrier slowed; Quinto looked up from the map to see what was going on. There was a visual-recognition drone stuck in a drainage ditch along the side of the road. As they approached, the VRA drone—little more than a machine gun on treads—spun and trained its gun on each of the soldiers in turn. When it got to Quinto, it paused.
“Human. Human!” Quinto shouted, engaging the thing’s vocal-recognition failsafe. It went on to the next soldier.
It was always an uncomfortable moment, having a VRA drone point a weapon at you. You’d think it would be hard to mistake a human for a Luyten.
Failing to identify anything that resembled a starfish, the gun spun away.
“Get a few guys to pull it out of the ditch,” Quinto said. Four troops hopped out of the transport and wrestled the thing back onto the road. It headed off down the road, continuing on its randomly determined route.
Pleasant Street dead-ended close to the mouth of the mine, about half a mile past an old hotel that should be coming up on their left. When they got to the mine they’d have to unseal it using the critical blast points indicated on the topo map, then a 2.5-mile ride on the maglev flats into the mine, to the storage facility.
If someone had told Quinto two years ago that he’d be going into an abandoned mine to retrieve seventy-year-old weapons and ammo, he would have laughed out loud.
It wasn’t funny now.
The locomotive and five boxcars were parked right where they were supposed to be—as close to the mouth of the mine as the track would allow. They were late-twentieth-century vintage, the locomotive orange and shaped like a stretched Mack truck. Quinto called Macalena and his squad leaders, instructed them to set the big recognition
-targeting gun they’d brought along in the weeds on the far side of the road, and place two gunners near the entrance with interlocking fire. When that was done, they got the rest of the squads moving down the tunnel. The quicker they moved, the sooner they’d be out of hostile territory and back in Philly.
Quinto took up the rear of the last carrier for the ride down into the mine. He was not a fan of deep holes with black walls, and when his CO had first laid out the mission Quinto had nearly crapped his own pants.
Macalena climbed in and took the seat beside him.
“So what are we looking for? I cannot for the life of me guess what we’re doing in here.”
Quinto smiled. It must seem an odd destination to the rest of the men, but they were used to being kept in the dark about missions. The fewer people who knew, the less likely the starfish were to get the information. Or so the logic went.
“The feds have been sealing huge caches of weapons in old mines for the past two centuries, waiting for the day when Argentina or India or whoever took out our more visible weapons depots. They coat them in Cosmoline and pretty much forget about them.”
Macalena frowned, sticking out his big lower lip. “You mean, old hand grenades and machine guns and shit?”
“More or less. Flamethrowers with a pathetically limited effectiveness range, eighty-one-millimeter mortars, LAW rockets, fifty-cal MGs.” Most were outdated weapons, but simple, easy to operate.
Macalena shook his head. “So we’re that desperate.”
In the seat in front of them a private who was at least seventy was clinging to the bar in front of her seat. She was tall—at least six feet. The slight jostling of the carrier was clearly causing her old body discomfort. It was true what they said: There were no civilians anymore, only soldiers and children.
“Yup. We’re that desperate,” Quinto said. “They’ve destroyed or seized so much of our hardware that we have more soldiers than guns.”
The Heist Page 3
