Blackout

by Edward W. Robertson

  He folded his arms. "You aren't going to drag us out of here."

  "I have no intention of dragging back dead weight that will only slow me down. If you insist on staying, this is the last time you'll see me. But I will speak to you before I go."

  The man glared from Raina to the others. "Don't know what's left to talk about."

  "Then it will be fast, won't it?"

  He muttered something she couldn't make out, then grabbed the door and swung it open with a squall of hinges. "Come on."

  Raina walked up the steps. The inside was well-lit from the tall windows and smelled vaguely of sweat. The man brought them down a hallway to a classroom where the chairs had been rearranged around three long tables laid end to end.

  "Wait here." He walked outside, the door shutting itself behind him.

  Mia glanced across the room. "Does this feel right to you?"

  "Yes," Raina said.

  "Just checking."

  Two minutes later, the door reopened. Nine people filed inside, concluding with the heavyset man. They seated themselves on the opposite side of the table.

  The man spread open his right hand. "You want to talk? Talk."

  "The aliens could strike at any time," Raina said. "We sent scouts to bring you home. Why have you stayed?"

  "Like you just said. Those things could hit us five minutes from now."

  "And you think you're better off here?"

  "I know you beat Anson. I'm not sorry it happened. But that was a bunch of dudes with horses and rifles. You really think you can fight off an alien invasion?"

  Raina rested her wrists on the table. "I think that we have to try."

  He drew back, shrugging dramatically, one corner of his mouth stretching wide. "Well, I think you're going to die. So why would we be a part of that?"

  "Then let us die. But there's no need for you to stay and watch. Or to die with us. I'll send you to San Diego. Our allies there will keep you safe."

  "These allies, they got any aircraft carriers? Any nukes? Giant robots with missile fingers?"

  "You have seen them," Raina said levelly. "They are no different from you or me."

  The man laughed, belly bouncing. "Then they're just as fucked."

  "If the Swimmers come for San Diego, you should leave it. Find yourself a piece of land so wretched that no one wants it, human or alien. And be free."

  The amusement drained from his face. Some of the others were watching him now. "You serious?"

  "I'm not here to get you killed. Exactly the opposite. And I think you're much more likely to live if you run away than if you stay in this building."

  "That's a different story than we heard yesterday. But it ain't that easy, is it? We can't just go settle down wherever we please. It's crazy out there. Is it dangerous to stay? Hell yeah. But at least we know this city."

  Mia leaned forward. "After the first invasion, I traveled the entire country. Coast to coast. North and south. I was out there for years. Didn't come back here until last summer. I ran into my share of trouble, but it's not as bad as you think. Mostly, it's just empty."

  The man sat back, inhaling through his nose, frowning hard.

  A young woman with close-clipped black hair snapped her fingers. "Know what? Staying here, it's nuts. We think the crabs are going to kill everyone in San Pedro and then leave us be?"

  "If we keep our heads down?" the man said. "Maybe."

  "Nah. I think they'll send in the death squads. Or use those jets to put the flame to us. I say we roll down to San Diego. If the crabs come for us there, then we'll go find us a mountain or something."

  This drew murmurs and nods. Raina said nothing, letting the mood change like the tide.

  After a short discussion and many glances, the heavyset man turned back to Raina. "Say we go. How long before you get us to San Diego?"

  She considered this. "If you want to go on foot, we could send you out tomorrow. You would be there within four days. But if you wait two days? Then we'll send you in our submarine. You'll be in San Diego three hours later."

  The short-haired woman tipped back her head. "You all got a submarine?"

  "And it's evacuating Catalina right now."

  The man knocked his knuckles against the table. "In that case, we'll see you in San Pedro."

  Raina walked away feeling lighter than she had since seeing the second ship. There was still much work to be done—to say nothing of the potential war—but knowing that some of her citizens would be removed from harm's way had lightened the load on her shoulders.

  "That wasn't so bad," Mia said. "But if trouble comes to San Diego, you're really going to let them walk away?"

  Raina headed down the cracking sidewalk to where they'd left their bikes. "I meant what I said about not wanting dead weight. Yet giving them the choice to leave or stay might spark them into believing in our cause. If so, they're no longer weight to be carried. Instead, they become hands to help us do the carrying."

  Red chuckled. "Back in the day, we all thought you were some teenage Genghis Khan. But that was more like Madeleine Albright."

  "Who is Madeleine Albright?"

  Red's face took on a distant look. Raina had seen it often on older people: the look of remembering things that were now long gone.

  He smiled crookedly. "A peacemaker. Who nobody's going to remember in another twenty years. Funny how those guys fade away while the warlords live on forever."

  They rode north through the late morning. Soon, the signs on the dusty shops were written in Spanish as often as English. They passed through a neighborhood of old, charred timbers and fire-hollowed apartments. To the left, the spires of the city huddled together, a poor imitation of the snow-capped mountains behind them.

  They stopped to meet with another colony emplaced on the banks of the concrete-bedded river. The discussion went just as it had in Compton. As Raina and her warriors departed, the citizens were already gathering up their belongings.

  Biking onward, a vast stadium rose to their left, encircled by rings of trees. Dead cars scattered the parking lot. Hills climbed to both sides. They angled northeast through chain restaurants and churches. Crows demeaned them from power lines. There was no wind and the day was eerily still. With the skyscrapers behind them, hidden by the ridges, they crossed Glendale, funneled toward a north-running canyon between high hills on the right and mountains to the left.

  The colony was nestled in the foothills of the mountains less than half a mile from the main road. They turned off the boulevard, biking uphill. They'd hardly entered the subdivision before they saw the first of the bodies sprawled across the road, clothes and skin spotted with blackened holes.

  5

  "Lowell."

  He knew the word had a meaning but he didn't know what that meaning was. He knew the meaning of the pain, though: he was dying.

  "Lowell."

  He inhaled deeply. Dirt and mildew. Underground? Right. Crawlspace. Where they'd gone after the last attack. Amazing they hadn't been found yet. Or was that why the boy was trying to get him up? Were the Swimmers finally at the house?

  He wasn't sure that would get him to move. He might not have anything left. In Crescenta Valley, the only reason they'd made it out with their hides intact was that the aliens had been caught off-guard. He and Randy had swerved into a driveway, ditching the bikes and running past a house. He'd been hit twice—although he'd been protecting Randy with his body, they'd only been grazes. Shoulder and back. He'd thought he'd smelled cooked bacon. The house's back yard declined into a canyon. They'd taken that, thrashing through the brush.

  He'd thought they'd lost the Swimmers then. Maybe they had. Maybe it had just been bad luck. Either way, they'd retreated to Glendale, meaning to skirt around the west side of the mountains before continuing north. They'd holed up in a house there overnight. In the morning, he'd heard people outside, voices carrying from two or three blocks away. And when he'd emerged to warn them of what was coming down from the north, a foot pa
trol of Swimmers had appeared out of nowhere.

  He hadn't tried to fight. He'd grabbed Randy and lit out. Screams behind them. Blue lasers. That's when he'd been hit the third time. In the moment, it hadn't felt so bad. He could smell it, though. Burned fabric. Cooked meat. But this time, the smell was full-on barbecue. He fell. Randy helped him up. They found the crawlspace. Dug in while the Swimmers finished their massacre.

  It hadn't stopped there. The aliens were scouring the neighborhood. Door to door. As Randy had treated his wounds, following Lowell's instructions as Lowell tried not to pass out, he'd heard three screams. Different voices. The dying said no words, but he understood them nonetheless: Don't move. If you want to live, you stay put and you let the crabs move on with their business.

  "Lowell!"

  "Voice down," Lowell croaked. His mind worked automatically, feeding him the words without the need for conscious thought. "They're supposed to be deaf, but I swear they heard those people yesterday."

  "A group of travelers just arrived outside," Randy said, lowering his voice. "We have to warn them."

  "Only thing we have to do is sit tight and wait it out."

  "You can do that, if you want. But I'm going outside."

  Lowell rolled onto his side. This hurt. He could feel the ceiling a few inches above his head. Dim light seeped through the screen they'd punched through on their way in. He had to sneeze, but he held it in. Randy was a gray outline beside the exit.

  "Don't," Lowell said. "They'll see the bodies. That will tell them everything."

  "I haven't heard the Swimmers in over an hour. I'll be fine."

  The boy got down on his belly and wormed out the square of daylight. Lowell thought about grabbing his ankle. He eased onto his stomach and pulled himself forward on his elbows. Every motion ripped at the burns on his back. Didn't matter. This was it.

  Randy squiggled outside. Lowell got his head and shoulders through the exit, squinting at the bright yellow afternoon. "Wait for me."

  Randy glanced back, surprised. He nodded, then jogged toward the street, hunched low. Lowell was about to call after him when he understood: the kid was clearing the way forward.

  Lowell got out of the crawlspace and took a seat, sweating from pain. He checked his pistol—he'd been dragging himself through dirt—but it was clean. Randy was gesturing from behind a row of overgrown hedges. Lowell made his way over and followed him through the yard to the corner of the house at the end of the block. Down the street, six people were split between checking out the bodies and keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

  "How'd you know they were here?" Lowell murmured. "Hear them talking?"

  "No," Randy said. "The birds went quiet."

  "That could have been in response to the aliens."

  "But then it was quiet enough for me to hear someone cocking a shotgun."

  Lowell laughed. The movement hurt. "You're getting better at this."

  He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The six people whirled, raising guns and bows.

  He extended his empty hand from behind the building. "We're friendlies."

  The girl strode forward. Raina. Thin as a sword, but she cut like one, too. "You're the grim man. Lowell."

  He moved from cover, hiding a wince at the pain in his back. "There's Swimmers nearby. Eighteen or twenty. Jumped us yesterday. We've been running from them ever since."

  She glanced across the silent neighborhood, gesturing at the corpses. "We've seen nothing except these bodies."

  "You mean the ones riddled with laser burns?"

  Raina walked toward him, brown eyes moving down his form. "You're hurt."

  He nodded. "Took a laser in the back. I'm fine."

  "I don't think that's true." Around her, her scouts inspected the patchy grass lawns, presumably for alien footprints. "But you hide it as well as a cat."

  "I didn't come out here to gab. I came here to warn you. The aliens are coming in through the Valley. Heading for the ship. Get out of here and keep your heads low until the storm blows over."

  "Do you think it will?"

  "Doubt it. That's why I'm getting out of Dodge." He turned to Randy. "You ready to move?"

  The boy's eyes shifted between Lowell and Raina. "We'll be safer if we travel together."

  "Only if you intend to get in a fight."

  "We should go with them for a few miles. Then go our own way once we know we're clear."

  Lowell hitched up his rifle. Like everything, it hurt. His instinct was to strike out on their own, hole up until he was well enough for extended travel, then continue to Colorado. And he thought that instinct was right. These people didn't have doctors or a surgery lab. He had his own antibiotics. Either he'd heal up, or he wouldn't. There was nothing to be gained from—

  "Hey!" One of Raina's troopers, a red-bearded guy who looked like he should know better, walked out from the corner lot. He was carrying a blue post. It was two feet long, square-sided, and obviously alien. "Found this in the brush. Any idea what it is?"

  Lowell's mouth tightened. "We're too late."

  He ran down the street as fast as he could. Each footfall jarred the wounds in his back. Cold sweat prickled his skin. Randy hurried to catch up.

  "It's a remote eye," Raina said. "Run!"

  Lowell veered off the street into a yard of tall green grass spangled with yellow-flowered weeds.

  Randy trampled along beside him, eyes rolling to all sides, rifle in hand. "What's going on?"

  "Motion sensor," Lowell said. "The aliens left it here. Less work to let it watch for us than to try to flush us out."

  "Why would they care so much about us?"

  "Doubt it's personal. They probably have orders to secure the city—or to exterminate everything they find."

  A wooden fence blocked the back yard. It was riddled with termites, the powder of their excavations mounded along the bottom rail like small piles of sand. Lowell reared back and kicked a post. It splintered. His back nearly did, too.

  "You're hurt," Randy said. "I'll do it."

  The boy drew back his foot and drove his heel into the boards. One fell away, tumbling into the weeds on the other side. As he kicked at the next board, Raina and her team caught up to them, smashing at the fence. The rotten boards tore with a dull, weak sound.

  Lowell planted a hand on Randy's back and shoved him through the gap. Lowell followed right after.

  Raina hopped through, head on a swivel. "When was the last time you saw the aliens?"

  Lowell glanced at the sun. "Three, four hours."

  "Enough time for them to be far away. But I doubt that's so. I think they left the bodies there as bait."

  They stood on the edge of a defile running up the side of the mountain. The slopes were spotty with shrubs, succulents, and occasional trees, but the bottom of the canyon was dense, green. Sheltered.

  "We should stick to the draws," Lowell said. "Good cover. They'll be looking for us in the streets."

  Raina gazed back at the houses. "I was supposed to bring those people home."

  "I have the feeling a lot of our plans aren't going to work out anymore."

  She touched the handle of the sword on her belt, then hiked down the slope below the fence. Her people filed after her, keeping watch on the heights and the neighborhood behind them.

  "You shouldn't have picked up the aliens' eye," Raina said to the red-bearded man; with a jolt of recognition, Lowell saw that it was a scruffier-looking Red, former member of the Sworn. "It could have been dangerous. A trap."

  "Maybe so," Red said. "But if I hadn't of dragged it over, we might still be running our mouths in the street. While the Swimmers closed in on us."

  One of the other women got an odd look on her face. From the scars on her cheeks and forehead, Lowell realized he knew her, too: Mia, who'd infiltrated the Heart as Thom, a traveling storyteller. Her short black hair had grown out several inches. As he gazed at her, her dark eyes widened. She went for her gun.

  Lowell
slid like a man stealing second base. Brush raked his face. Rolling onto his left elbow, head pointed upslope, he unshouldered his rifle. He flicked off the safety and shifted for a better view, keeping his eye away from the scope for the moment. Movement from the fence—and a blue beam flicked through the trees. Fifteen feet ahead, a branch popped loudly and burst into flame.

  "Swimmers!" Mia yelled.

  Lowell sighted in on the gap in the fence. Something gray moved behind it. He aimed at the thickest part and squeezed the trigger. The stock jerked against his shoulder; the clap of the rifle pealed across the hills.

  Lasers flashed from the treeline. Four, then six, then eight. Amongst the branches, the aliens' stick-like limbs were camouflaged perfectly. Guns went off around him. Lasers seared through the leaves.

  "Fall back!" Raina called.

  Lowell planted his palm and pushed himself up. His back locked up, pain shooting up his spine. He fell prone on the fragrant earth. Fighting back the urge to vomit, he tried to rise again. Again, he fell.

  Hands gripped his armpits. Red and Mia. He found his feet, swallowed, and snapped off a shot at the nearest alien. The bullet slammed into a trunk. Blue beams laced through the woods. Lowell crouched low and jogged after the others. Ahead, Randy ran bent forward, his back humped.

  Outnumbered twice over. By beings intent on hunting them down. Raina's people had abandoned their bikes. Would have to try to give the Swimmers the slip. If the aliens kept up pursuit, it might not be possible to lose them until nightfall. Between the ache in his back and the wooziness in his head, Lowell wasn't sure he'd last that long.

  He crashed through the brush. Sporadic laser fire zipped through the air, raising the smell of ozone. On the run, it was hard to make out the Swimmers from the trees, but one group looked to be keeping pace on the left while another crept forward on the right. As if they weren't just chasing the humans—but herding them.

  Lowell glanced ahead. They were about to hit the bottom of the draw, which sloped down to the left. On the run, with no time to think, their natural impulse would be to follow the draw downhill. The exact direction the crabs wanted them to take.