The Orion Plan

by Mark Alpert

  She leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. “Is the machinery talking to you? Telling you what to do?”

  The silence lengthened. Sarah waited it out. Then Luis raised his right hand, the one that was clenched into a fist, and opened it, flooding the tunnel with red-tinged light.

  But there was no LED in his hand. The red glow came from a clear, crystalline disk, about two inches in diameter. At first glance Sarah thought the teenager was cupping the disk in his palm, but then she saw that the thing’s surface was flush with his skin. It had been surgically implanted.

  Now Sarah was silent. Her throat tightened and her gorge rose and she had to swallow hard to stop herself from vomiting. It was appalling, and yet it made perfect sense from the probe’s point of view. The spacecraft had been programmed to take advantage of all the natural resources at its landing site. If it had the technology to meld its machinery with biological tissue, why wouldn’t it take advantage of human resources as well?

  After a few seconds Sarah overcame her revulsion and took a closer look at the glowing disk implanted in the boy’s palm. It wasn’t an ordinary light source. The disk was just the most visible part of the device; below the skin, the crystalline substance narrowed to a slender tube that seemed to tunnel into the boy’s wrist and thread inside his forearm. What’s more, Sarah thought this tube looked familiar. It resembled the resonators that physicists use to generate high-energy laser beams. The implanted device, she concluded, was most likely a weapon.

  She felt another surge of disgust. This is bad. The probe is already deploying its weapons, and we haven’t even begun to communicate with it.

  She stopped examining the boy’s hand and looked at his face. Now that there was more light in the tunnel, she could see the sweat on his forehead. The left side of his face was twitching.

  “Why are you so frightened?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Luis grimaced. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “There was a battle. An hour ago, on Sherman Avenue. The soldiers were going to kill Dorothy, and Emilio and Paco had to stop them. So they fired their rays.” He held his right hand as far away from his body as he could. Then he closed his hand over the disk, smothering its light. “They didn’t want to do it! They didn’t want to burn the soldiers! But they had to! They had to!”

  “Whoa, calm down. Who’s—”

  A high-pitched alarm interrupted her. The noise came down the jagged shaft she’d descended just a minute ago. The FBI had apparently discovered the hole in her detention cell. Luis heard the alarm too—he turned toward the noise and cocked his head to listen. Then he turned back to Sarah.

  “We have to leave now.” He pointed down the length of the utility tunnel. “We’ll go this way. It’ll take us back uptown.”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, wait a second. Where are we—”

  “Por favor, señora.” Luis stepped toward her, and for a moment she thought he was going to grab her arm. But instead he opened his hand a bit, releasing enough light to allow her to see his face. “I won’t hurt you. You can trust me.”

  His expression wasn’t fearful anymore. Now it was sweet and perfectly ordinary. The change was so abrupt that Sarah suspected that something else besides the crystalline tube had been implanted into the boy. Something was inside his brain, manipulating his behavior. Although the boy wasn’t a mindless slave—he seemed to still have his own emotions and personality—he was clearly following the alien machinery’s instructions. And for this reason, Sarah knew she couldn’t trust him.

  But she couldn’t stay in the tunnel either. Now she could hear voices echoing down the shaft, the angry shouts of the FBI agents.

  She let out a sigh. “All right, let’s go.” Then she followed Luis down the tunnel.

  TWENTY

  Emilio rolled over and stared across the mattress at Paco. The boy slept on his stomach, with the right side of his face pressed against the pillow. The left side was motionless except for his lips, which quivered as he drew in each breath.

  It was almost dawn. Through his bedroom window Emilio watched the sky change color, gradually brightening from dark purple to light blue. When he looked again at Paco he could see more details: the mole above his left eyebrow, an old scar along his jawline, the fading bruise on his forehead. Despite everything, he was a good-looking muchacho. He could’ve been an actor or a model if he’d grown up in the suburbs.

  Emilio reached toward him and touched his hair. It was short and thick, like a soft carpet. He pressed his fingers down and ran them though Paco’s hair, then looked at the boy’s face to see if he would awaken. But Paco didn’t stir. He was a heavy sleeper, just like Emilio’s grandmother, who was snoring away in the apartment’s other bedroom. She’d heard about the evacuation order but decided to ignore it.

  What surprised Emilio more than anything was how normal everything seemed. Well, not exactly normal—until a day ago he could’ve never imagined waking up next to a dude. “Natural” was maybe a better word for it. It seemed perfectly natural to be lying in bed with Paco, as if they’d been sleeping together for years. Emilio hadn’t realized it until now, but this was part of the future he’d dreamed about, a future where he and his friends would be completely free, with no cops or teachers or priests telling them what to do. He liked this dream. It was worth fighting for.

  The dream had a price, though. Emilio raised his right hand and forced himself to look at the cosa maligna in his palm. It had cooled off over the past few hours but still felt murderously hot. The burning sensation ran all the way up his arm. The pain flared every time he bent his wrist or elbow.

  But that was nothing compared with the agony he’d felt when he’d fired the thing. The intensity of it had stunned him the first time it happened, when he’d stood behind the open window of the darkened apartment on Sherman Avenue, pointing his right hand at the soldiers in the street below. His arm had warmed from the inside until it felt as if his bones were melting. Then the pain had jumped like an electric shock from his arm to his head. A brilliant white light flashed inside his brain, and at that exact same moment the head of the Air Force captain exploded. The man died before he could feel anything, but Emilio felt it all, every last bit of pain and shock and horror. He was so appalled he wanted to press his right hand against his temple and blow his own brains out.

  And yet he couldn’t stop firing at the soldiers in the street. His hand moved automatically, aiming at another soldier, then another. He couldn’t control it. All he could do was watch the men run from the invisible beams. Paco was in the next room, firing from another window. Working together, they killed all nine of the men in the Special Tactics squad. Then they aimed their beams at the soldiers farther down the street. In less than a minute he and Paco had decimated the platoon and turned their armored vehicle into a heap of molten slag.

  But Emilio felt no sense of triumph. His goal had been to drive the New York Police Department out of Inwood, but he’d ended up fighting soldiers instead of cops. He’d wanted to strike a blow for his homeboys, for all the Dominicans and African Americans who were getting shafted by the rich white assholes in this city, but instead he’d killed a lot of Latinos and blacks. The crystalline weapon inside his arm didn’t care about race or skin color. It slaughtered everyone.

  The worst moment came right after the battle, when Emilio regained control of his body and peered out the window to view the carnage on Sherman Avenue. Until that moment he’d considered himself a hero. He’d truly believed he was an avenging messiah, the chosen instrument of a mysterious force that had magically appeared in the basement of his grandmother’s apartment building. But he couldn’t fool himself anymore. The mysterious force had its own plans, and they weren’t the same as Emilio’s. He was a pawn, not a messiah. And because the force had inserted its weapons into his body, the only way to fight it was to kill himself.

  He seriously considered it. He was willing to die for his sins. But as he stood by the window he saw Paco enter
the dark room and come toward him. All at once Emilio felt an aching love for the boy. It was such a strong rush of feeling that he was sure Paco must’ve seen it on his face, even in the darkness. To cover his embarrassment, Emilio yawned and stretched, and a moment later Paco did the same. Then, without a word, the boys left the apartment and slipped out of the building through the service entrance. Emilio led the way through the deserted streets, heading for his grandmother’s building.

  Now he was glad he hadn’t killed himself. He was glad he got the chance to sleep with Paco and wake up beside him. No matter what happened from now on, he’d always have that memory.

  Bright morning light slanted through the bedroom window. It was almost 6:00 A.M., Emilio guessed. He wondered if he should try to get a few more hours of sleep. He looked once more at Paco, admiring the boy’s sleeping body. Then Emilio closed his eyes and buried his face in his pillow.

  As he lay there he thought of the other Trinitarios, Luis and Carlos and Miguel and Diego. Yesterday he’d brought them, one by one, to the mirrored closet in the basement. He’d felt guilty about it—he didn’t give his homeboys a choice about joining his army—but he knew they’d thank him afterward, once they saw how strong they’d become. Strangely, though, none of the other Trinitarios showed up for the battle on Sherman Avenue. The mysterious force had apparently decided to send them elsewhere. Emilio didn’t know what their assignments were, and he didn’t care either. Right now, as he drifted off, it all seemed so unimportant.

  Then, just as his first dreams began to form, he heard a gunshot.

  It was very loud and close, only a few feet away. Jolted awake, he opened his eyes and saw Paco again, still lying beside him. But now half of the boy’s head was gone. His brains were splattered across the bed’s headboard.

  At the same instant, someone leaned over the bed, lifted Emilio’s head by his hair and grabbed his right arm at the wrist. In one swift motion he slammed the palm of Emilio’s right hand against his right temple. Then a second man began wrapping duct tape around his head to keep his hand splayed there. Before Emilio could even think about charging up his weapon, it was pointed at his own skull.

  Within seconds the men wrapped the tape several times around his head, binding his hand so tightly to his temple that he couldn’t even wiggle his fingers. Then they restrained his left hand behind his back by wrapping the tape around his midsection, and finally they bound his ankles together. Emilio got a glimpse of the men before the duct tape covered his eyes. They were dressed all in black and had black paint on their faces.

  They didn’t put tape over his mouth, but Emilio was too dazed to scream. As soon as the men finished restraining him, he heard someone else enter the room. For a second he imagined it was his poor grandmother, but then he heard the men shout, “Sir!” The newcomer was their commander.

  “At ease,” the commander said. Emilio couldn’t see the man, but his voice was close, just a few feet from the bed. “Did you follow the general’s orders?”

  “Yes, sir!” one of the men replied. “One dead and one alive.”

  “Prepare the corpse for autopsy.” Emilio felt a gentle tap on his back. “And prepare this one for interrogation.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  The meeting place was at 1 East 161st Street in the Bronx, but Joe didn’t realize what stood at that address until he was just a few blocks away. First he saw the elevated tracks of the Jerome Avenue subway line, and as he walked a little farther down the street he spied the massive white structure on the other side of the tracks. The Emissary had arranged to meet the government officials at Yankee Stadium.

  Joe stopped walking and stood on the sidewalk in front of a check-cashing place. It was six in the morning and most of the stores hadn’t opened yet. “Seriously?” he whispered. “That’s where you want to go?”

  I thought you’d be pleased. You have an affection for Yankee Stadium, don’t you?

  He shook his head. Although he was a Yankees fan—mostly because of the jacket his ex-wife had given him—he’d gone to only one game at the stadium, and that was almost ten years ago. The tickets were too expensive, even for a doctor. “The stadium won’t open until noon. How will we get in?”

  Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of that. I want to focus now on improving your personal appearance. Your clothing, for example, is in such a poor state that I fear it will distract the officials and hinder my communications with them.

  Joe looked down at his ragged T-shirt and jeans. The swim across the East River hadn’t done them any good. They were still damp even though he’d wrung them out, and now they smelled worse than ever. The river water had given them a brackish odor, and when it mixed with his sweat—he’d been wandering across the Bronx for hours—the combination was pretty foul.

  “Yeah, I could use a wash,” he admitted. “And a change of clothes.”

  Look to your right. Do you see the restaurant on the other side of 161st Street? The one called McDonald’s?

  He spotted it. The place was open, but he knew how difficult it was for a homeless person to wash up in a McDonald’s restroom. He shook his head again. “The bathroom will be locked and they won’t give me the key.”

  It’s not locked. I’ve readied it for you.

  Joe felt uneasy. He remembered last night’s escape, how the gleaming tentacle had pulled him across the river and then retreated into the mud of the South Bronx. The Emissary wasn’t just inside him anymore—she was all over the city, her black fingers exploring the underside of every street and sidewalk, every apartment building and store. Even the McDonald’s.

  Come on, Joe. You’ll feel much better once you’re clean.

  He was too tired to argue. He walked to the corner and crossed 161st Street.

  As he stepped into the restaurant he saw two women in red and yellow uniforms behind the counter. They automatically turned their heads and eyed him suspiciously. Like all fast-food workers in the city, they’d been trained to keep a lookout for undesirables. Joe’s reaction was just as automatic: he avoided their stares and headed straight for the men’s room.

  The bathroom door had a lock, but it opened when he turned the knob. Curious, he looked at the latch and saw that the locking mechanism had been crimped. Then, as the door closed behind him, he heard a crunch in the tile floor near his feet. The tiles cracked and a five-inch-tall black spike rose from the floor. The Emissary had provided a doorstop. Now no one else could come into the bathroom.

  Look at the floor in the left corner, next to the sink. The tiles there are loose.

  Sure enough, when Joe bent over he was able to pry the tiles from the floor. Underneath them, tucked into a dank hole about the size of a suitcase, was a large, heavy shopping bag. He ripped the bag open and was astonished to see a suit inside: navy blue pants and jacket, plus a white shirt, a striped tie, black shoes, and a pair of socks. There was also a smaller bag containing a razor and a can of shaving cream.

  “Jesus,” he whispered. It was worse than he’d thought. How had the Emissary collected all these things? How many stores had she broken into?

  There’s no time to explain. You need to move quickly, because someone else will want to use the restroom sooner or later.

  Still dumbfounded, Joe took off his filthy clothes and threw them into the corner. He stood by the sink and washed off the East River stink, scrubbing his armpits and crotch. Then he lathered his face and shaved off his grubby beard. Finally, he put on the shirt and socks and suit. Everything was brand-new and fit him perfectly. The patent-leather shoes were polished so well, he could see his reflection in them.

  Joe looked in the mirror as he knotted the tie around his neck. The Emissary had been right—he did feel better. He stared at himself in the mirror, carefully studying his face. This was Dr. Joseph Graham of the Department of Surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital. The man had been gone for so long, Joe barely recognized him.

  There was a sudden banging on the restroom door. “Hey! This is the manager! Wh
at’s going on in there?” It was a man’s voice, loud and threatening. He put a key in the lock and tried to come inside, but the doorstop was in the way. “Yo, asshole! I know you’re in there! What the fuck did you do to the door?”

  Joe quickly grabbed his old clothes, stuffed them into the dank hole, and covered it with the cracked tiles. Then, just as he turned around, the doorstop sank into the floor. The manager banged on the door again and this time it burst open and the guy stumbled inside.

  He was a big man wearing a blue short-sleeve shirt. He gazed at Joe for a moment, uncomprehending. Then he put an apologetic look on his face. “Oh, I’m so sorry, sir! I thought … I mean, the girls said they saw a…”

  Joe’s heart pounded. It took him a while to realize he didn’t need to be afraid. “Uh, yeah, it’s my fault. I was taking too long to—”

  “No, no, sir! Take as long as you want! I’m very sorry about this!” His face reddening, the manager retreated and closed the door.

  It’s like magic, Joe thought. All it took was a suit and a shave.

  I have something else for you. Check the right-hand pocket of the jacket.

  Joe reached into the pocket and pulled out a roll of twenty-dollar bills.

  Get yourself some breakfast. You still have forty-three minutes until the meeting.

  He stared for a while at the money in his hand. It was at least five hundred dollars. Then he left the bathroom, went to the counter and ordered a large coffee and three Egg McMuffins. The counterwoman—who’d eyed him so suspiciously fifteen minutes ago—smiled and told him to have a great day.

  As he sipped his coffee he thought about what the Emissary had promised. He imagined returning to his home and job and family. Going back to his old life would be a bigger challenge than simply putting on a new set of clothes. It wouldn’t be enough to look good and have some money in his pocket. He’d have to convince Karen that she could trust him, and that wouldn’t be easy. He’d broken so many promises.