INCURSION - an ALIEN OMNIBUS

by Chris Lowry

  The bullet slammed into Brandon's shoulder and knocked him back behind the counter.

  Jodi jumped through the door and spun Rob around, checking over him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Brandon wailed on the floor.

  “Did you have to shoot him?”

  Jodi shoved Rob to the back of the store.

  “You're lucky I didn't shoot you.”

  She put the gun under his chin and slowly pushed up, tilted his head back until it couldn't go any further.

  “Never, ever time me up again,” she growled.

  Rob gulped.

  “Sorry.”

  She glared at him for a moment and Rob backed up into the wall again.

  Jodi bent down to check on Brandon.

  “You shot me,” he cried.

  “I'm sorry,” she answered. “You fired on me after I identified myself.”

  “I'm dying,” said Brandon. “I'm bleeding to death.”

  “Do you have a phone?”

  She checked his pockets and tossed the cell phone to Rob.

  “Call 911,” she examined the wound.

  “Through and through,” she told him. “It's going to hurt but they'll fix you up at the hospital. You're going to have a scar and you'll need to work on mobility therapy.”

  “You shot me,” he moaned.

  Rob hung up the phone and set it on the counter.

  “Is he going to live?”

  “Yes,” Jodi grabbed him by the arm and started leading him out of the store.

  He jerked his arm out of her iron grip.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “Don't we need to wait for the police?”

  “I was ordered to avoid complications. Did you use the card?”

  “He didn't run it.”

  She held out her hand and he passed it back to her.

  “Unlawful detention, robbery, accessory to robbery, attempted murder, you're racking up some charges Mr. Crow. You don't want to be here when the police arrive.”

  Rob scooped up the laptop and rushed out with her.

  “I'm cutting you slack as it is,” she said.

  Outside they walked quickly down toward the closed pawn shop to avoid the crowd of three people standing outside of the liquor store drawn by the shots and screaming.

  They kept their heads ducked low as sirens blared in the distance.

  Rob hid under the edge of a striped awning, keeping his face ducked low to avoid any cameras.

  Jodi watched over his shoulder at the train station platform.

  The Midnight Special was due through in the next ten minutes, an overnight train ride that should carry them through the plains and into St. Louis.

  “I don't like this,” said Rob.

  A businessman scurried across the platform, dodged past a young couple that lounged on a pile of luggage and pawed at each other.

  “You keep saying that and I keep telling you I don't care.”

  “I just need to borrow your hotspot,” he explained. “If you'd let me grab a burner phone we wouldn't have this discussion.”

  “I said no. Then we don't need to keep the discussion going.”

  The train pulled into the station and disgorged a dozen tired travelers.

  Jodi dragged Rob across the platform by the shiny handcuff linking them together.

  He started to lag behind but people were starting to stare.

  “You don't have to cuff me anymore,” he whispered. “I got what I needed.”

  “Trust is earned, Mr. Crow.”

  “What if I said I was sorry?”

  “I would say thank you.”

  Another business man in a pin striped suit pushed out of the train, a cell phone attached to his ear.

  He finished his call, clicked it shut and slipped into his pocket.

  Rob watched him closely.

  “Would you please let me go?”

  “No.”

  “Pretty please?”

  Rob juked to one side and bumped into the pin striped suit.

  It tangled them up and jerked Jodi short as the handcuffs drew tight.

  “Excuse us,” she growled and yanked Rob back toward the train.

  “My fault,” the man dismissed them. “I wasn't paying attention.”

  “Really sorry about that,” said Rob as he tripped after Jodi.

  She grabbed him by the collar and shoved him on the train.

  18

  Sitting in a train car can be a surreal experience.

  The train whizzed through the countryside at ninety miles per hour, the desert landscape cloaked in pitch and faint starlight.

  Nine feet above the ground, the car slightly rocked on the rails, not the extreme motion of an ocean wave, but a subtle back and forth that could lull the senses.

  Jodi fought against the lulling as her mind held back images of Anson falling.

  Her partner was dead and she knew someone was to blame.

  She had yet to decide if it was Crow.

  He sat across from her and unpacked the laptop.

  “Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot.”

  He reached into his pocket and slapped her credit card on the table set up between them that held the packaging from the newly set up laptop.

  “You picked my pocket?” she growled.

  “I borrowed it,” he shrugged.

  She was going to shoot him.

  People dying, cars blowing up, helicopters dropping from the sky and some super advanced weaponry from DOD made to look like alien technology.

  “I'm going to shoot you before we get to DC,” she told him.

  “Damn.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Not that,” he waved her off.

  Rob held up the laptop battery and wiggled it in her face.

  “There's no outlet in here to pull a charge.”

  Jodi made a big show of patting her pockets.

  “Fresh out,” she smirked.

  Rob hopped up.

  “We need to find one.”

  She reached out and jerked him back into the cushioned railcar seat.

  “We are staying here.”

  “We've been through this before Special Agent.”

  “This time I'm not closing my eyes.”

  “Let's just check the dining car,” he said and tried to pull away again.

  She shook her head no, but her stomach grumbled.

  “Betrayed,” he smiled. “Come on, we'll pop in and out. No one will even notice we're there.”

  19

  Rob lead Jodi through the dining car by her hand.

  There was nothing romantic in it, he was just trying to hide the handcuffs that bound them.

  He studied the layout of the car, searching the tables and the people in the tables that lined the car.

  He spied a man in a sports coat at the far end of the car pecking diligently on an open laptop that matched the one Rob held.

  “Here is good,” said Jodi.

  She yanked on the cuffs and steered him toward a table.

  He jerked back and dragged her toward a different table, one closer to the man.

  “This is better,” he said.

  They sat across from one another, arms stretched on the tabletop.

  He reached for her hand and tried to hold it so it didn't look so awkward.

  “This is familiar.”

  She sighed, rooted around in her coat pocket and pulled out a handcuff key. She undid the cuff on her wrist first, then his.

  “If you run,” she whispered. “I'm going to shoot you.”

  Rob rubbed the red mark on his wrist and smiled.

  “I'm not going to run,” he set the laptop on the table and popped open the screen.

  “But I will be right back.”

  Before she could react, he hopped out of his seat and scooted toward the bathroom.

  He stepped inside and slid the door shut.

  He was only in for a moment, then opened the door and rushed back
to their table.

  “That was fast.”

  “Incontinence affects one out of every four adults over the age of sixty-five.”

  “I didn't need to know that.”

  He pulled a small flip phone cell out of his pocket.

  “Where did you get that,” she snarled.

  Rob punched in a number.

  “Modern cellular technology. Do you know what kind of advances we've made in the past ten years? In the past five?”

  A phone at the bar rings.

  The young handsome bartender picked it up.

  “Dining car,” he said into the handset.

  Rob disguised his voice in a feminine husky whisper.

  “Is my husband there?”

  “I'm sorry ma'am, I have no idea.”

  “Please,” whispered Rob. “He's in a gray blazer, dark hair and probably playing on his laptop.”

  The bartender did a quick glance around the dining car. He was barely even trying.

  “I'm sorry, I don't see him.”

  “Are you sure? I know he's there.”

  This time he didn't even bother to look. He was young and bored and tired.

  “No, I don't see him in here.”

  “Look Honey,” said Rob. “I know he's there. Look to your left, I mean, I just left him down there.”

  The Bartender finally turned their direction.

  Rob leaned against the window and gazed at Jodi.

  “What are you doing?” she glared.

  “Oh,” said the Bartender. “Now I see him.”

  “Go get him please. And don't tell him it's me.”

  The Bartender set the phone down on the car and lifted the bar top so he could get out.

  He made his way up the aisle.

  Rob folded the phone closed and pocketed it as the Bartender passed them.

  He stopped at the man in the gray blazer's table.

  “Excuse me Sir,” the Bartender cleared his throat. “There's a phone call for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  The man in the gray blazer stood up and followed the Bartender back up the aisle.

  Rob let him pass by, then jumped up.

  He grabbed the laptop, quickly switched batters and set it back down exactly where it was.

  He moved past the table and stepped into the bathroom again.

  The man in the blazer stopped and turned around.

  He moved back to the table and folded the laptop closed.

  He tucked it under his arm and carried it back to the bar with him.

  He picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  Rob opened the bathroom door and moved back to the table with Jodi.

  “You are a cruel and evil man,” she said.

  Rob shrugged and tried to look sad.

  “It gets worse.”

  “There's no one here,” the man in the gray blazer barked at the Bartender.

  “It was your wife.”

  “I'm not married.”

  The Bartender shrugged.

  “I'm sorry Sir, that's what she told me.”

  “You got the wrong guy pal.”

  He stalked back to his table scowling and sat down.

  He popped open his laptop.

  “Son of a bitch,” he slammed a fist into the table.

  The Bartender rushed down the aisle again.

  “Sir?”

  “My system crashed. All my work is gone.”

  “I'm sorry Sir.”

  Jodi leaned across the table and whispered to Rob.

  “You are a bad person.”

  “I know,” he said. “But it's for a higher cause.”

  He pulled out the cellphone as he booted up the laptop and connected them together.

  Jodi turned the laptop so she could watch what he was doing.

  “Talk to me.”

  “I'm looking for help,” he said as his fingers danced across the keyboard. “I know people. They know things. People who don't follow orders.”

  He gave her a look. She shrugged it off.

  “Without order, there would be chaos,” she said as she gazed out of the window. “I think I read that in a philosophy class. It's true. You have rogue factions doing this, like our friends in black back there, or dissatisfied elements doing that, like your internet buddies. But if everyone followed orders, everything would be alright.”

  Rob stopped typing and hit enter.

  He sat back with a satisfied smile on his face.

  “You can't believe that.”

  “I have to believe it,” said Jodi. “It's who I am.”

  The train shot into a tunnel and shut out the nighttime sky.

  20

  The train exited the tunnel and was flanked by two Helicopters painted in matte black.

  They were flying dark, the pilots using IFR goggles to follow the contours of the landscape.

  A squad of black clad commandos sat in the open cargo areas of each flying chopper.

  Riggs sat in one of the cargo bays and glared at the train as it raced below them clocking in at just under a hundred miles per hour.

  One of the commandos taps him on the chest to get his attention.

  Riggs turned to him.

  The man tapped his earpiece to get Riggs to turn on his radio.

  “We've never done an insertion like this, sir,” his voice came through the com piece.

  “I don't want excuses,” Riggs ordered.

  The Commando nodded, then turned to tap the pilot on the shoulder.

  The helicopter descended and matched the speed of the train below.

  The pilot was an expert, but winds that whipped across the landscape and the backwash thrown up by rocketing train buffeted the craft.

  Weighted ropes were thrown out of the helicopters as they lined up over the train cars.

  The Commandos slid down the rope and perched on top of the rooftops as they rocked on the tracks.

  Riggs was the last man out of the front helicopter.

  He hit the rooftop and slid along the side.

  A Commando reached out and grabbed him until he could get traction and footing.

  They signaled the helicopters.

  The ropes dropped and both birds peeled off to fly parallel to the train.

  Riggs motioned to the men and they scurried along the rooftop toward a break in the cars.

  21

  “Bingo,” said Rob.

  Jodi jumped startled.

  Her hand flashed to the holster at her waist.

  “What have you got?”

  He whirled the screen around to face her.

  “We're not the only ones to notice the moving stars.”

  Her eyes raced over the screen like a trained speed reader.

  “Information,” he informed her. “It's all over the web.”

  “It reads like a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theories-” she glanced out of the window and stopped talking.

  He followed her stare.

  “Damn it,” he sighed.

  A faint shadow of a helicopter flying over the plane moved away from the car.

  They saw a patch of darkness flying away over the landscape.

  “Come on,” Jodi scrambled up.

  He pushed her arm away.

  “Give me one minute.”

  His fingers tapped the keyboard in a rocket rapid fire.