The old man put a hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry son,” he said.
Hiscock smiled grimly.
“I just hope the glory boys have room for an extra one.”
They arrived at the docks fifteen minutes before the chopper was due.
Something else had got there ahead of them – a glowing oval craft hovered above the quay, casting a green beam down on a survival-suited figure standing stock-still below it.
***
Alice had stood staring down into the dark water for many minutes, half-expecting Dave’s body to float to the surface. But after the initial bubbles there was no sign he’d ever been there apart from a spray of blood-spatter on the gray rubber. Finally she got back in the dinghy, dampened a cloth and wiped the red away, cleaning for long minutes after all trace had gone. It was only then that she realized she was crying – heavy sobs that threatened to take over completely and send her into a fetal crouch that she might never rise from.
She had to force herself to climb back up onto the quay. Her every instinct was telling her to get back out onto the water and just sail – keep going for as far as her fuel would take her and just see what happened next.
But that’s too close to the way out Dave chose. I came here to look for survivors.
She had to raise her visor – just long enough to wipe the tears away and clear it of condensation. But just doing that brought a fresh stinging to her nose and throat. The air smelled foul.
Just another reason to get back onto the water.
She pushed the thought aside, gripped her heavy flashlight, and walked up onto the quay, trying not to look at the bodies that lay strewn along its length.
She came across the first of the flyers in the alley between two of the bigger warehouses. It was nearly eight feet long and crouched like a black mantis over a body on the ground. Pincers snipped at the limbs and blood pooled in a jet-black puddle.
Alice finally reached her breaking point.
She ran forward, waving the flashlight beam wildly against the warehouse walls.
The creature lifted its head. Pale white eyes reflected her flashlight back at her. The long wings started to beat and the creature took to the air. It carried the man’s leg in its pincer as it came straight for her.
“No!” she shouted, and pushed hard with her mind.
The wings stopped beating and the beast fell out of the sky as if it had hit a wall. Green liquid spurted from its mouth. It twitched once, then it was dead. Alice bent over the body then had to raise her visor again as her coffee came back up.
She dispatched three more creatures in similar circumstances over the next ten minutes, all of which had been in the process of cutting up the dead. So far none of them had shown any inclination to attack her, preferring instead the easy pickings on the ground.
But for how long?
She walked out onto a clear space, heading for the main entrance to the dock. There were no people here, but Saint John was a big town.
Surely someone has survived?
A bobbing light caught her attention. She had started to move towards it when she realized it was much further off that she’d thought. It was another of the flying craft, growing bigger all the time as it swooped towards her position.
She wasn’t given time to run. Within a second it had come to a dead halt straight above her.
It came for me!
Something gripped at her mind, hard, and Alice was lost in a dark place, no longer able to see the docks around her or feel the concrete under foot.
Whatever had her, it had her tight. She tried to push against it, but this was no drone. There was an intelligence at work here – one that wanted information. She hung in a vast black void while she was studied – and no matter how much she tried, she could not keep it out of her mind. She was rifled – like a seasoned burglar going through a room, fast and efficient. Part of her revisited the memories being activated – human anatomy classes at University, a particularly gruesome visit to an autopsy room at a morgue, photoflash fast images of pages of textbooks, drawn straight from somewhere she’d never known them to be filed.
After human anatomy the mind-rape kept right on going – physics this time. She’d not studied the subject for more than fifteen years, but her mind retained every snippet of information she had ever read or been told. The alien presence sucked it up eagerly.
It only slowed for closer study when they got to nuclear physics. She heard her old Professor’s voice in her head, although he had been dead these five years.
“There are nearly 2,000 tons of highly enriched Uranium in the world, produced mostly for nuclear weapons, naval propulsion, and smaller quantities for research reactors.”
After that the search through the canyons of her mind grew more specific, searching out instances where she had gleaned information about the location of nuclear weapons. A picture came to her mind of a small town in North Ayrshire in Scotland – she’d met a boy from there at University, and his father had worked in the Royal Navy Armaments Depot – looking after the weaponry. After that she watched again a television documentary about the US Naval fleet in San Francisco – including several nuclear powered submarines.
I’m betraying my world!
She struggled and thrashed – but all inside her mind. For a single, brief moment she caught a glimpse of the dock and felt solid ground underfoot, but the alien presence gripped again, and once more she was back on her sofa at home, watching the documentary.
***
Hiscock brought the pickup to a screeching halt. Before he was even aware of what he was doing he had the Kalashnikov in hand and fired a long burst straight at the glowing craft. At first he thought it was going to soak up the fire without effect, then it started to wobble from side to side. The suited figure below fell to the ground in a heap and Hiscock saw the old man move from the far side of the truck to help.
He kept his eye on the craft, expecting at any minute it might come for him. Instead it started to move off, away from the quay and out to sea. He sent another long volley after it, then went to help the Professor.
Between them they got the suited figure into the rear passenger seat. The old man removed the mask of the suit and gasped. A pale faced woman looked back at them, her eyes a blank stare, her mouth working like a drowning goldfish.
“Do you have any liquor on you son?” the old man asked.
Before he could answer the woman jerked and her gaze came into focus. She took one look at them and scrambled away, crawling as far back in the seat as she could.
“Who are you?”
Hiscock realized all she could see were two masked and suited figures looming over her. He lifted his hood, and the Professor followed his lead.
“It’s okay miss,” the Professor said. “It’s gone.”
She started to sob.
“I told it everything.”
They didn’t get time to ask what she meant. Something heavy thudded against the far side of the pickup. Hiscock stepped out, just in time to see a winged flyer attacking the truck’s bonnet with pincers that cut through the metal with little effort. Once more he raised and fired the Kalashnikov. The flyer blew apart in a rain of black fragments and green slime.
Hiscock let out a yell of triumph, but it was short lived. Three more flyers, each more than five feet long and with a wingspan of over ten came down from the darkness above. Hiscock started to shoot but with three targets he knew it was only a matter of time before one got through to him.
And I‘ll have to change a magazine in the next ten seconds.
He killed one of the flyers by blowing five holes in a row along its side. He’d just turned to another when the remaining two fell out of the sky, dead as stone.
Hiscock turned to ask the Professor if he’d seen what happened. The old man was staring, wide-eyed at the woman.
“What did you do?”
The woman smiled wanly.
“I seem to be able to stop them
– some of them anyway.”
“How?”
She shook her head.
“Apart from the fact that I just think it, I know as much as you do.”
The fluttering of wings in the air overhead signaled a new attack. The woman closed her eyes, scrunching them up.
Like a kid pretending to think very hard.
Four more flyers fell out of the sky, one hitting the roof of the pickup with a dull thud that shook the truck.
The woman now had a nosebleed but hadn’t spotted it yet.
“I suggest we get out of here,” she said. “I think they’re targeting us. More will come.”
“We’ll have to hold them off,” the Professor said. “Our ride is due any minute now.”
“Ride?”
The air filled with the roar of an approaching chopper.
***
The flyers attacked en-masse just as the chopper came to a halt on the quayside. Two soldiers stood at the door, motioning for Alice and the two men who’d saved her to come across the dock towards them. Alice pushed and flyers fell all around them.
“Run,” she shouted.
More flyers swooped around them but she concentrated on getting to the chopper. The wash from the rotors threatened to knock her sideways. She almost fell. The two men with her held her up and almost dragged her aboard.
The chopper rose as soon as they were inside. The noise deafened her, especially when the soldiers started to fire automatic weapons from the doorway.
“Incoming,” one of the soldiers shouted. An even louder burst of automatic fire came from outside the chopper. The whole craft vibrated. The soldiers continued firing in the doorway for several more seconds before one shouted.
“Clear!”
The noise level dropped as all weapons fire stopped. One of the soldiers from the doorway came across to them.
“You can take off the suits,” he said. “We’re all clear.”
They helped each other out of the bulky clothes and she found out about her travelling companions. Alice was surprised to find the old man was the reason for the chopper.
“Are you important?” she asked above the din.
He smiled wanly.
“I’m about to be.”
The soldier returned and handed all three of them muffled headphones and mouth mikes.
“This will help,” he said in Alice’s ear after she got them on. “Just relax. We’ve got a long flight ahead of us.”
The two men who had saved her were on the opposite side of the chopper, but she was too weary for further conversation.
Not that I’d know what to say anyway.
She turned her head to face a window. All was dark outside, with no lights to be seen. She relived the mind-rape, over and over again. There was no doubt about it – the presence had taken everything she knew about both human anatomy and the world’s supply of nuclear weaponry.
But why?
No matter how long she thought about it, she couldn’t find a conclusion. And when she finally managed to turn her mind to other matters, all she could see behind her eyes was Dave eating the shotgun.
Tears ran down her cheeks.
After a while the stress caught up with her and she fell into a restless sleep, full of dreams of purple skies and tall stalks swaying in the moonlight.
Some time later she came awake with a start. The engine noise had changed. Looking out the window she saw lights below.
It’s a town. A whole town has survived.
But as they descended she saw she’d been wrong. They came down to a landing on the deck of a vast aircraft carrier.
An armed guard met them on the deck and led them past a fully manned gun battery and down several levels into the bowels of the vessel, along seemingly endless gray corridors before finally leading them through a heavy iron door.
The door slammed shut behind them. Alice suspected they were now in part of the boat that the tourists never saw… there would be no guided tours here.
They were marched into a room full of middle-aged men… some of whom she recognized from their appearance on the political slots on the news. They never looked this frightened on the television.
***
“Good,” an uniformed officer said. He had five stars on his shoulder and looked like he was in charge “We can begin. Would everybody please take a seat.”
Most of the twelve or so people in the room moved towards the large table, but stopped when Alice spoke.
“I’m not ready to begin anything.”
“My dear young lady, ” the senior officer began, but that was as far as he got.
“Call me that again and I’ll have your balls in a basket,” she said.
She saw the shock on Hiscock’s face, and was quick enough to catch a suppressed grin from the old Professor, but she wasn’t finished.
“I’ve lost everything but these clothes I stand up in. And I’ve no idea why I’m here.”
She had their attention now.
“My priorities are probably different from yours. I want a shower, some clean clothes, a decent meal, a cup of coffee and about twelve hours sleep.”
“Me too,” Hiscock said.
“I’m afraid we don’t have time,” the General said.
“No… I’m afraid you don’t get a choice,” Alice replied. “What are you going to do… bring out the thumbscrews?”
The General actually laughed.
“It wouldn’t be the first time on this boat.”
The Professor turned to the men around the table.
“I can brief you… I think we’ve got enough to talk about for a while? Ms. Noble here is important, trust me on that. But I need to speak to her first… and she’s right. She needs to rest.”
This was addressed to the General, who nodded.
A tall woman stepped forward.
“Come with me. Let us see how many of your priorities can be satisfied in this cold place.”
As the woman led Alice and Hiscock out of the room the General leaned over and whispered in the Professor’s ear.
The old man went white, and Alice felt a chill run down her spine… a chill that was still there even as she stood under a hot shower and cried for all that was lost.
***
Hiscock woke, refreshed and rested. He found a fresh set of clothes laid out on a dresser beside the bed – a gray military shirt and pants that fitted him perfectly.
You’re sleeping with the enemy now.
He went out into the corridor and followed his nose in search of coffee. As he made his way to the kitchen he realized he was hungry. From the smells coming down the hall, it seemed that someone had beaten him to it.
Alice Noble sat at the table staring at a flat screen embedded on the wall. She had the keyboard in front of her, and surfed while eating her way through what seemed to be half a loaf worth of toast.
The screen on the wall showed scenes of carnage.
“Anything else on?” he asked as he headed for the toaster. Alice looked up at him silently, her eyes wide with fear. Using the mouse she changed channels.
First up was a scene of deathly quiet. A chopper roamed the streets of a huge city – to Hiscock’s untrained eye it seemed it might be in the Far East. The streets were full of dead bodies – and flyers harvesting them. It went on for many minutes in complete silence. It was the most horrific sound he’d ever heard.
A channel change brought a scene of fire and chaos -- street fighting on a grand scale. Armed police fought to hold a barricade secure against all too familiar attackers – the drones had acquired a taste for live flesh. The camera zoomed in as a policeman blew a wing off one that was swooping straight for him. It didn’t even flinch as it struck, as quick as a flash, embedding a stinger deep in the policeman’s neck. A small logo flashed in the corner of the screen: Live from Houston.
There are some channels still broadcasting. But how many?
Wordlessly Alice switched to another channel where an announcer spoke
over a scene of smoking, ash-covered, ruin.
“In the first nuclear attack against a population in North America, the city of Miami has been reduced to little more than ash and rubble, leaving an estimated three million people unaccounted for. ”
Alice flicked to a different channel.
“The United Kingdom has today felt the full brunt of the alien’s strength. The latest attack was centered on North Ayrshire where a Royal Navy armaments depot was totally destroyed by the now familiar beam from a large craft. The resulting gouge in the earth also took out the towns of Johnstone, Paisley and much of the southern half of Glasgow. It is impossible to calculate the number of dead.”
Alice moved the mouse and the sound cut out, but Hiscock couldn’t take his eyes off the pictures as the scene cut to the Eiffel Tower. Dark shadows crawled over it like ants on a fruit tree.
Alice switched the screen off.
“At least until after we’ve eaten?” she pleaded, and Hiscock nodded in agreement.
They ate in silence, but suddenly he wasn’t nearly so hungry.
Alice couldn’t get the picture of the new gouge in Ayrshire out of her head.
Did I cause that?
She was pretty sure she knew the answer. The alien presence had lifted the information directly from her mind, and acted on it.
How much more will they act on?
They were on their second cup of coffee when the Professor arrived. He looked five years older than the night before and took to the coffee as if it might save his life.
It was Hiscock who framed the question she wanted an answer to.
“So what gives Prof? Are we to be let in on the secret? Or is it too big for simple country folk like us?”
“I’ll answer that,” the old man said. “But first I need to hear Ms Noble’s story. I believe she knows something important.”
Alice started talking, and once begun, found she couldn’t stop. When she got to the part about the tissue samples the Professor asked her to hold on for a minute and went to talk to a guard at the door. After that there were no more interruptions until she brought them right up to date, finishing with the events on the dockside, and her fears about what the aliens might do with their new information.
The Invasion (Extended Version) Page 8
