by J. J. Green
How had the aliens gotten there?
A door opened as they arrived outside it, as if whoever opened it was aware of Sayen and her escort without seeing them. They went through, and Sayen found herself in something resembling a medical center. She shivered. At the best of times, she hated these places with their invasive machines. Then she caught sight of something that made her blood run cold. Half-hidden behind a large scanner was a long metal table fitted with restraints. A trough ran around the edges, leading to a pipe that disappeared into the floor. It was an autopsy table.
“Lie down,” commanded the female Shadow, indicating the narrow bed that protruded from the scanner.
“Why?” Sayen croaked. “What are you going to do to me?”
A moment’s silence passed. Carl had said he thought the Shadows were telepathic, and now Sayen was sure of it. They never spoke to each other, yet they seemed to know what the others were going to do before they acted.
A male Shadow shrugged, as if he thought the decision they had come to was unimportant. “We are going to investigate your physical body. We want to know why we could not replicate you, and we want to better understand the human form. We have attempted to do this investigation on ourselves as replicants of humans, but the process is uncomfortable and causes injuries. Human bodies also heal too slowly. We have no use for you because your body will not replicate, so we will take this opportunity to increase our knowledge.”
Sayen thought she was going to faint. Her first impulse was to run, but she knew she wouldn’t get far without being stunned again and brought back. Her stomach turned at the thought of waking up while being operated on by one of these creatures.
She had to take them all out at once to have a chance of escaping, and she would have to attack quickly to prevent them from communicating telepathically with others in the building.
Could she do it? All her attempts so far to escape had failed. Having an enhanced body wasn’t enough. You also needed the skills and knowledge of how to use it. Sayen had been smart all her life. Why couldn’t she find a way out of her predicament?
She swallowed. First, she needed time to think. “What...what’s this machine?” she asked, indicating the scanner. “What does it do?”
“This machine allows us to see your internal structures and gives us information on how they work in unison. Readings taken while you are alive are the most useful to us. We will perform the invasive procedures last.”
Legs trembling, Sayen lay down on the bed. A scan wouldn’t harm her, and she still had no idea how she was going to get out of the situation. She wished she had Jas with her. Jas would know what to do. Jas would protect her.
The narrow bed was activated, and Sayen slid inside the machine. Whirrs and clicks started up, and her mind whirred too.
Four of them have weapons. Four weapons is a lot, but I only need to get one and kill them all before they have a chance to shoot me. She grimaced. Yeah, that’s all, Sayen. How’re you going to do it?
Too soon, the machine stopped and the bed she was lying on slid out of it. Three Shadows stood around her and two were looking at a screen. Of the ones standing near, only one had its weapon trained on her. The others had returned theirs to holsters around their waists. Sayen estimated it would take them at least a second—maybe longer—to draw and fire.
But the moment she reached for the weapon pointing at her, the Shadow holding it would shoot, and it would be all over for her. She was sure the Shadows wouldn’t mind giving up on their scientific investigations and killing her if they thought she was a risk to them. Though she was shaking with fear, she would have to keep her cool and wait for the right moment.
“Sit up,” said the man.
One of the Shadows at the screen came over to her, holding an ophthalmoscope. They must have noticed her enhanced eyes on the scan. The Shadow held up the instrument in its hand to Sayen’s face and leaned toward it to read the display panel on the back.
Sayen blinked slowly, twice, to activate her enhancement. Her eyes zoomed in on the skin of the Shadow’s face, and Sayen could see it in minute detail—the fine hairs sprouting from pores, the tiny sweat glands, the ridges and furrows, even a miniscule, blind mite. She shuddered. Shadows really were physically identical to the humans they replaced.
Who had this Shadow replaced? What had been her job? Had she been married? Had she had a family? To create the five Shadows in the room, five people had died. Sayen thought of Carl’s missing parents, and wondered how many people the Shadows had killed. How many more would kill they if they weren’t stopped?
She thought of her parents being replaced by these evil aliens. Her fear began to give way to rage. If she didn’t make it home, it would break her parents’ hearts. She wasn’t going to let that happen.
She was furious at these things that had trapped her.
“Your eyes are partly synthetic,” said the Shadow. “Their capabilities exceed the limits of natural human eyes. Do many humans have modifications like yours?”
“Yes,” Sayen spat. “Lots of us have. That’s why you couldn’t replicate me, and why you won’t be able to replicate them. And the enhancements I have are nothing compared to most of theirs. They’ll kill you.”
The Shadow moved its gaze from the display screen to look directly into Sayen’s eyes. “I think you’re lying. We have replicated many humans. You are the first that we couldn’t replicate.”
Sayen locked eyes with the creature for a moment, until it broke under her stare and turned away.
Another Shadow approached with an otoscope. They’d noticed her enhanced hearing during her scan, too. As the creature examined her ears, she watched the others in the room, noting their positions and their level of attention to her. They were paying her less mind than at first.
“We want you to run on this,” one of them said, pointing to a treadmill. Sayen went over to the machine, and the Shadow attached a mask to her face to measure her respiration. It turned on the machine, and kept a weapon trained on her while it adjusted the controls.
Sayen walked on the treadmill, then jogged, then ran, as the machine sped up. All the while, the Shadow looked from her to the machine’s display and back to her. In the rest of the room, Sayen could see three of the other Shadows, but she didn’t know where the final one was.
She was lucky. The Shadow she couldn’t see was the one that didn’t have a weapon. She couldn’t risk looking around to find where it was, or she might alert the Shadow watching her as to her intentions. She would just have to take a chance that she would locate the unseen Shadow before it could react.
The Shadow by the treadmill continued to watch. Its gaze flitted to her again. Then to the treadmill display. To her. She was sprinting now, faster than humanly possible. But with her enhanced body, she was barely panting. Her eyes were locked on the Shadow’s.
To her. To the display. To her. To the—
Sayen pushed off with her right foot. She overtook the speed of the treadmill. Leaping over the front of it, she grabbed the Shadow’s weapon and kicked it down. Its head cracked on the floor, but Sayen didn’t see the impact. As it was falling, she was already turning and firing. One Shadow fell with a scream, a red, smoking hole in its chest. Another raised its hands in self-defense as the aim of Sayen’s weapon traveled toward its face, but the beam sliced through its palms. A larger cavity opened where its mouth had been.
Sayen spun round. The third Shadow had made it to the door and was opening it. She got it in the back before it could take a step outside.
Where was the fourth? She had to stop it from broadcasting to the others. She scanned the room, but there was no sign of the creature. There was only one possible place it could hide.
She went to the corner of the room and looked under the autopsy bed. The Shadow’s eyes met hers. She saw fear in them. Sayen hesitated for a split second. Then she remembered the woman whose life the Shadow had taken.
Her jaw firmed. She raised the weapon and fired.
Chapter Sixteen
They must have walked two or three miles in their snowshoes, Carl estimated. His nose, fingers, and toes were numb from the cold, in spite of the exertion, and his face smarted from the steady, chill wind. His mind was also spinning from the effects of the invisibility spray. One moment he was on solid ground, the next it seemed like he was stepping into eternal nothingness.
Keeping track of the other two was also hard. Every few minutes they would all speak to indicate their location and move closer if they’d drifted too far apart.
Harrington had coated three weapons with the invisibility spray and handed one each to Carl and Makey, emphasizing that they had to take special care to know what they were shooting at to avoid shooting each other. She’d also pointed out that if they dropped their weapon, it was as good as lost.
Though she’d sprayed the bag of equipment she was carrying, she hadn’t treated anything else inside it. Every so often, the interface that showed Sayen’s location would appear mysteriously in mid-air and float around for a few moments before disappearing into nothingness again.
After one of these appearances, Carl heard Harrington mumble to herself.
“Shouldn’t we be getting close?” he asked.
“Yes, we should,” she replied. “According to the readings, Sayen’s being held only two or three hundred meters from here.”
The landscape in front of them remained bare and empty of life.
“Do you think the readings are wrong?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then where is she?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. The Shadows are operating in secret for the moment. Any place where they congregate has to be hidden to avoid causing suspicion. I think Sayen’s right where this thing says she is. Except she’s underground.”
“The Shadows have an underground base here?” asked Makey.
“I spent a few years living here,” Harrington replied. “There are research facilities all over the place. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of the old superpowers built a secret underground facility. If the Shadows occupied one, it would be the perfect hiding place for them.”
“Krat,” Carl said. “How are we going to get inside?”
“We’ll figure out a way,” Harrington replied. “Makey, this is where you wait. You remember what Sayen looks like from seeing her on the Galathea, right? She looks the same now, just conscious. If you see her, go to her and help her back to the snowmobiles.”
“But—”
“Makey, that’s an order. If you want to work in security, you’d better learn to follow them.”
Carl heard an adolescent huff come from Makey’s direction.
“Let’s get going, Jas,” he said. It had been many hours since they’d first learned of Sayen’s disappearance. Every moment they delayed could mean the difference between success and failure.
“Just a second.” A roll of thin rope appeared from the security officer’s bag. She put it on the ground. “This is our rendezvous. It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing. Makey, stay here until you see Sayen, in case we need to find you.”
***
Carl and Jas went the final distance together. They talked as quietly as the low whistle of the wind would allow.
“How are we going to get in?” Carl asked.
“The entrance has to be disguised to look the same as the surroundings, or we’d see it by now. But the Shadows have human bodies. In this environment, they need heat, and heat will escape through any gap.”
A pair of binoculars appeared from thin air and floated over to Carl.
“What do you see?”
Carl held the binoculars up to his eyes, and the landscape was transformed to grey shapes beneath a glowing sky. Except in one place. Four bright lines formed a square only a few meters from where they stood.
“We’re right on top of them,” he said. He removed the binoculars and focused his gaze on the spot that had shown the heat signature. As he went nearer, the faint lines marking the edges of a hatch became visible. “Over here.” Now that he looked closely at it, the ice over the hatch didn’t glisten like the rest. It was artificial, but without looking directly at it, he would never have been able to tell.
He felt something swipe him. It was Harrington’s hand. She grabbed his arm.
“Great,” she said. “I can see it too. According to the tracer, Sayen’s about twenty meters farther on in the same direction.” She sighed. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do it this way. If we could kill a guard and slip in, we’d have a little time before they realized what was happening. But we don’t have an alternative. We’ll have to surprise them and rely on chaos and confusion.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to blow the door in.”
The bag rustled.
“This has a two-minute fuse,” Harrington said as an explosive device appeared. “The second it blows, we go in. After that...krat. I don’t know. I don’t know what we’ll find in there—how big the place is, or how many Shadows there are. We’re going to lose each other the minute we’re inside, and we won’t be able to talk or we’ll give ourselves away. I guess we just have to find her, get out, and get back to Makey. Whaever happens, don’t wait for me. Go to the snowmobiles. I can find my own way back.”
“The same for me,” said Carl. There didn’t seem much more for either to say.
They withdrew to a safe distance.
“Cover your ears,” Harrington said, just before the explosive blew. As a gaping hole appeared in the ice, Carl was already running toward it. He leapt in and straight down into the Shadows’ base. The door had ripped the hand bars from the wall before embedding into the floor. Carl landed on it and moved quickly away. As he expected, he heard a thunk as Harrington jumped down behind him.
Smoke from the explosion filled the air. Carl headed in the only direction that was clear. Shadows were already approaching the scene of the explosion. He slipped past them easily and went deeper into the base.
As he ran, he wondered what he was looking for. Where would the Shadows keep their prisoners? Sayen could be anywhere. Harrington had been right. The place did seem to be a research facility. He’d already passed several labs. A chill sweat broke out on him. Had the Shadows brought Sayen there because they wanted to experiment on her?
He was heading into an area of classrooms. He doubled back to return to the research laboratories, though he dreaded what he might find.
A Shadow ran out of a doorway, and Carl crashed into it. The creature landed heavily and stared around in confusion. Carl jumped over the Shadow and sped away, wondering at what he had seen. For a moment, Carl had experienced the drifting into nothingness that was an effect of the invisibility spray. At that moment, he’d looked at the Shadow, and seen a faint light around the man, like sunspots on his retinas on a sunny day. He ran on.
No shout or cry came from behind him, but if the Shadows were telepathic as he suspected, the information about invisible assailants was probably being broadcast.
He had to find Sayen fast.
The Shadow base was eerily silent. No alarms were ringing due to the explosion at the door. No one was shouting commands. But Carl could hear something else. It sounded like a fight was going on. He could hear grunts, gasps, and the sound of bodies hitting the floor.
As he turned a corner, he came upon a strange sight. Four Shadows were wrestling with an invisible opponent. Carl got a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, reddish-brown eyes. Harrington’s snow goggles had come off and the Shadows had caught her. If he didn’t do something soon, they would hold her still enough to get in a shot.
He aimed to fire, but he risked hitting Harrington. The disorientation effect of the invisibility spray hit him again. The Shadows before him glowed faintly. He blinked, and the glow was gone.
He had to concentrate. He would have to take them out close up. Before he could move, Sayen appeared, running toward them from th
e opposite direction. She was in her underwear, and she was a mess—covered in bruises, scratches, and dried blood. But she was alive. Now he just had to save Harrington and get Sayen out.
The woman’s eyebrows rose at the sight of the struggling Shadows, and she slowed her pace.
“It’s Harrington,” Carl called. “They’ve got her. Get out of the way. I’m going to shoot.”
Sayen looked in his direction, her face brightening in recognition of his voice. She slowed to a stop. The Shadows, on hearing him speak, loosened their grip on Harrington. They also noticed Sayen.
She had a weapon in her hand. She raised it and shot one of the Shadows in the stomach. As it fell to the floor, another was thrown head first into the wall by an unseen force. Carl shot a third, which was coming in his direction, trying to find the source of the words he’d spoken. The fourth aimed at Sayen, but the beam from her weapon cleaved its skull.
“Carl, Jas, where are you?” Sayen said.
Carl ran to her and grabbed her. “I’m here. Let’s go. The exit’s this way. Harrington, are you behind us?”
“Yes, I’m coming. Go.”
Gripping Sayen’s arm, Carl ran with her back to the blown-in door. When they reached it, they had a problem. With the hand bars ripped off, the hole was too high to reach. Then Carl had an idea.
“Climb on my shoulders, and I’ll lift you up.”
“Where are you?”
“Here.” He put her hands on his shoulders and squatted down. When Sayen was aboard, he rose to his feet. Sayen was in reach of the edge of the hatchway. He felt her stand on his shoulders to scramble out. He’d done it. They’d saved her.
“Makey’s due east, Sayen. He’s waiting for you, and he’ll take you to McMurdo Sound.”
“Krat that, Carl, I’m not leaving without you.” She was leaning over the hatch looking down at him.
“You’ll have to. I can’t make it up there.”
“I might not be able to see you, but I can pull you up.”
