The Orion Plan

by Mark Alpert

  She was right. It was coming back to him now. The memory played in his head like a home movie.

  He ran out of the room, out of the apartment. He ran down twenty-four flights of stairs, still clutching the bottle of Canadian Mist. Then he bolted out of the building.

  * * *

  After twenty-six minutes Sarah saw him come out of the lobby. He was running like hell, like an Olympic relay racer in a rumpled suit, but instead of a baton he had a bottle of brown liquor in his hand. As he left the building he hid the bottle under his jacket, cradling it between his arm and chest. Then he turned left and ran down the service road that paralleled the Henry Hudson Parkway. He was heading north.

  Luckily, Sarah was still in pretty good shape. She let him get about a hundred yards ahead. Then she ran after him.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Emilio couldn’t see or hear a thing, but he knew the soldiers were taking him away from the Air Force base. Judging from the steady rumbling he felt under his back—he lay on some kind of foam-padded stretcher—he guessed he was speeding down the interstate, probably in a van or an ambulance. Or maybe in an armored troop carrier, like the one on Sherman Avenue he’d blasted to pieces.

  His right hand was still stuck to the side of his head and his left hand was still tied behind his back, but the soldiers had replaced the duct tape with a sheath of hard plastic that wrapped around the top of his head and covered his eyes. They’d also stuffed him into a sack, a body bag made of material that felt crinkly and metallic, and they’d put a rubber tube in his mouth so he could breathe through a hole in the material. At first he couldn’t figure out the reason for the bag, but then he remembered something General Hanson had said, something about radio signals. The pendejo had surrounded him with metal to stop any signals from getting through.

  Emilio tried to remember more of his talk with Hanson, but the details were hazy. The soldiers had injected him with drugs afterwards, and he’d slept for a long time, at least twelve hours. Even after all that sleep, he was still groggy and not thinking straight. The drugs were still in his blood, making him stupid and numb, making him want to sleep for another day or two. But instead he stayed awake because he felt something behind the numbness, a dull ache deep inside his right arm. It was different from the burning pain he’d felt before, when he’d fired the crystal weapon. It was something new. While he’d slept, Hanson’s doctors had operated on him. They’d cut into his arm. They hadn’t removed the weapon, but they’d done something to it.

  He breathed fast and hard through the rubber tube, and the air hissed in and out. His anger burned inside him like the crystal, waking him up and clearing his head. As he lay there in the dark he pictured himself ripping off the plastic sheath and stepping out of the metallic bag. Then he saw himself raising his arm and pointing the white-hot disk at Hanson.

  Once he was fully awake, he listened carefully. The thick sheath covered his ears and the heavy sack covered the sheath, so he couldn’t hear much. But every so often the rumbling under his back grew stronger, as if someone were revving a powerful engine, a diesel job with plenty of horsepower. So he was probably in the troop carrier. It made sense—the vehicle’s armor would block radio signals too, and there would be enough room inside for a bunch of soldiers to ride with him. Maybe they were taking him to another Air Force base.

  Or maybe another prison.

  He wasn’t scared, though. He was too angry to be scared. Hanson had made a mistake—the motherfucker had underestimated him. He’d assumed that a stupid Dominican kid couldn’t do a damn thing without “the enemy” sending messages to his brain. But Emilio wasn’t stupid. All the names and addresses he’d given Hanson were fake, which meant the fucker would never find the Trinitarios. No, they were going to find him and fry his white ass. And Emilio would be there to see it. He was going to figure out a way.

  He relaxed his body as much as he could inside the bag. He took deep, slow breaths through the rubber tube, and at the same time he focused on the dull pain in his right arm, trying to pinpoint its source. After a few minutes he began to think he could actually see inside his arm, through thousands of tiny eyes that floated in his bloodstream. He could picture all the muscles and nerves threaded around the crystal tube. And he could also see how the doctors had tampered with the thing. They’d put something else in his arm and attached it to the crystal.

  Emilio started to panic, but he fought it down. He needed to stay calm. He needed to concentrate.

  * * *

  Naomi saw them arrive, the appointed representatives of the human species. The Emissary had extended several tendrils above the thoroughfare known as Sherman Avenue, and at the end of each tendril was an array of sensors. They streamed their readings to Naomi’s cradle, which occupied the bedroom formerly belonging to Dorothy Adams.

  Thanks to the sensors, Naomi could see and hear everything on the street. In the blazing light from this planetary system’s G-type star, which hovered near the sky’s zenith, she saw four combustion-engine vehicles approaching. According to the data the Emissary had gleaned from the planet’s computer networks, three of the vehicles were called Cadillac XTS limousines and the fourth was a Stryker troop carrier. They halted near 172 Sherman Avenue, on the same stretch of asphalt where the battle had taken place thirty-four hours ago. (The Emissary had cleared away the debris.) Then the doors to the vehicles opened, and Naomi saw the officials of Earth’s most powerful government.

  They were spindly, pale, fluid-filled creatures. They’d adapted to life on the planet’s continents by evolving skeletons and semipermeable skin. They’d developed centralized nervous systems to govern their behavior: hunting prey, seeking mates, competing for territory. Naomi felt a visceral distaste for them. They were very different from the First People, and very similar to the Second.

  They were also cunning, vengeful, insatiable, and self-destructive. Just like the Second People.

  Their government’s supreme leader had decided to remain in the city of Washington, most likely because he feared for his safety. In his stead, he’d sent three underlings to New York to negotiate the terms of the truce. Two were human males who held the titles of secretary of state and director of national intelligence. The third was a female known as the national security adviser. After stepping out of their limousines, the officials clustered in the middle of the street, surrounded by their own underlings.

  Two representatives of the government’s military forces emerged from the troop carrier: General Hanson of Air Force Space Command and his ultimate superior, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hanson was the commander who’d tried to destroy Naomi’s cradle, and now—according to communications intercepted by the Emissary—he was demanding to inspect it. Neither Hanson nor the other general carried any weapons, but behind them were two younger, larger soldiers who held a heavy, oblong sack between them. It was composed of steel mesh that obscured whatever was inside it.

  Naomi suspected some human trickery. She sent a message to the Emissary. Can you adjust the sensors to observe the interior of that sack?

  Yes, I can. I’ll employ a particle beam that can penetrate the material. One moment, please.

  The beam revealed another human inside the mesh. It was Emilio Martinez, the Emissary’s first contact, the one assigned to defend the probe. Hanson had subdued and apprehended Emilio thirty hours ago, and the Emissary had lost contact with the boy shortly afterward. He was still alive but seemed to be in distress, most likely because of his confinement. The scan showed his heart beating 120 times per minute, which was abnormally high for a human of his age.

  Why is he here?

  There was a pause. The Emissary was considering all the possible scenarios and assigning a probability to each.

  I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that question with any certainty. There are too many unknowns.

  This annoyed Naomi. The Emissary was supposed to be her guide. It had collected information on the human race for the past five days, and
by now it should’ve been able to predict their behavior. Their minds didn’t seem particularly complex.

  What would Hanson gain from bringing him here? Is the general working in concert with the other officials or acting on his own?

  Again, I can’t answer. Hanson’s military record indicates a strong respect for authority, so one might expect him to obey his superiors. But his actions in recent days have been unusually ruthless and uncompromising. Given the contradictory evidence, I can draw no reliable conclusions.

  Naomi was more than annoyed now. She was angry, agitated. This conversation was a waste of time. In many ways the Emissary was a useful program, but it lacked the insight and flexibility of an intelligent life-form. The First People who’d written the program had recognized its limitations; that’s why they’d made sure one of the Emissary’s priorities was transplanting their species. And the first step in that process was Naomi’s birth. Although her cells were derived from human tissue, her intelligence came from First Planet. The memories and abilities of hundreds of the First People had been compiled into a vast database and stored in the probe’s computers. When the Emissary began the cellular transformation of Dorothy Adams, this database formed the core of her new mind.

  Now it was time for Naomi’s first decision. Should she let the humans approach her cradle? It would be risky, but there was also a possible reward.

  She instructed the Emissary to activate new tendrils and stretch them over Sherman Avenue. At their tips were devices that would amplify Naomi’s voice and broadcast it to the officials and soldiers in the street.

  “I have a question for General Hanson.”

  All the officials and their underlings raised their heads and looked up. Their eyes focused on the tendrils that had extended from the lampposts and the brick walls of the apartment buildings. Hanson leaned closer to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and whispered something into the other general’s ear. Then he stepped forward.

  “I’m Hanson!” he shouted, staring at one of the tendrils.

  “What’s inside the package your soldiers are holding?”

  Hanson looked over his shoulder and pointed at the sack. “This is one of the young men you attacked and mutilated. Your machines surgically implanted a weapon into his arm and corrupted his mind as well. We’ve wrapped him in metallic sheeting to prevent you from signaling the implanted devices.”

  “And why have you brought him?”

  “When you proposed the truce, you said you could remove the implants. We brought the young man here so you can take all your devices out of his body.”

  Just as Hanson finished speaking, one of the other officials stepped forward. He was the secretary of state, a relatively tall and slender human, at the upper end of the age range for the species. “The president has requested that you perform this service as a sign of your good faith. He also requested that you allow our military officers to inspect the facility you’ve built here. They’re unarmed and they promise not to damage anything inside.” He tilted his head toward the entrance of 172 Sherman Avenue. “Once you’ve complied with our requests, we can proceed with the negotiations for a truce.”

  Naomi ordered the Emissary to increase the sensitivity of the instruments in the tendrils. When she viewed the secretary of state she could see his heart rate, his oxygen levels, the temperature of his skin. The Emissary analyzed the readings and reported that the human was most likely telling the truth, or at least what he believed to be the truth. But the readings for Hanson indicated the opposite. His pulse raced and his skin temperature spiked. The general was clearly plotting something, but he hadn’t shared his plans with the other officials.

  She needed more information. She sent another message to the Emissary. Can you increase the resolution of the particle beam? I want a more detailed scan of the human inside the sack.

  I’ll make the adjustments.

  As the resolution increased, the scan showed a clearer picture of the boy’s body tissues—the mineralized bone, the fibrous muscles, the branching blood vessels. Naomi felt the distaste again, even stronger now. She focused instead on the weapon inside his limb, the crystalline tube that the Emissary had imbued with billions of joules of energy. Then she saw, at the tube’s midpoint, a claylike clump of C-4, a military explosive. It was a small amount, less than fifty grams, but it would be enough to shatter the tube and release the energy stored in the crystal. A wire connected the explosive to a primitive radio receiver, which had a slender antenna that stuck out of the boy’s arm and extended through the steel mesh as well. And when Naomi focused the scanner on Hanson she saw the radio transmitter in his pocket. All he had to do was push a button.

  She wasn’t surprised. In fact, the scheme confirmed all her suspicions about human treachery. But when she looked a little closer at the improvised bomb in the boy’s arm she noticed something else, something that truly astonished her. For the first time, Naomi felt a twinge of admiration for the human species, and for Emilio Martinez in particular. She didn’t know what emotions were motivating him, but they had to be fierce. He’d done the impossible.

  Meanwhile, the government officials were growing impatient. The secretary of state cleared his throat and coughed. “We’d like to know your answer. We want to make peace and learn about your civilization, all its history and culture and art. But you need to take these steps first.”

  Naomi knew the real reason why the humans wanted peace, and it had nothing to do with history or art. They wanted the First People’s nanodevices and beamed-energy weapons, all the technologies that terrified and enthralled them. That’s why they’d agreed to consider a truce instead of launching their cruise missiles at Naomi’s cradle. Although their avarice disgusted her, she recognized that it had saved her life.

  “I agree to your requests. I’ll remove the implant from the young man’s arm. And I’ll allow General Hanson into 172 Sherman Avenue. He can go inside now with the other soldiers and the boy.”

  The officials huddled with the generals and whispered among themselves. After half a minute General Hanson broke away from the group and strode toward the apartment building. The two large soldiers followed him, still carrying the sack that held Emilio. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of state and all the other officials remained behind.

  Naomi prepared herself. This was the risky part.

  * * *

  As Hanson entered the building he noticed that the alien machinery had spread. The shiny black metal lined the building’s vestibule, covering the walls, floor, and ceiling. The hallway beyond the entrance was now a black tunnel.

  But he wasn’t afraid. He marched straight ahead, his footsteps echoing against the polished metal. The Special Tactics soldiers trailed a few yards behind, slowed by the burden of carrying Mr. Martinez through the dark corridor. Hanson looked over his shoulder, frowning, until they caught up. Then he resumed his march, heading for apartment 1A.

  The apartment’s door was gone, so he went right into what used to be the living room. All the furniture had been removed or destroyed. Black metal covered every square inch of the room, but one of the walls seemed a little brighter than the others. It glowed slightly, shedding just enough light to let Hanson see where he was. This wall was the one his soldiers had discovered two days ago, the one that separated the apartment’s living room from the bedroom. The critical alien machinery—whatever it was—lay on the other side of it.

  He turned to the pair of Special Tactics men. “Put him over there. Prop him up against the wall.”

  Hanson pointed at the spot he’d chosen. The soldiers dropped the sack there and wrestled it into place. Emilio squirmed inside the sack, fighting them, but he gave up after a few seconds. His sack was bent at a right angle now, with the lower half stretched across the floor and the upper half leaning against the glowing wall. The top of the sack swayed a bit as the boy caught his breath, which whistled in and out of the rubber tube.

  Hanson was satisfied. The boy was in the o
ptimal position. The C-4 would detonate the crystal, and the explosion would strike the wall at its center, its weakest point. The black metal would buckle and the whole building would go down.

  The soldiers stepped backward, away from the sack. Hanson was just about to order them to return to the street when he heard a whoosh behind him. He turned around and saw a metallic panel stretch downward from the ceiling above the apartment’s doorway. In an instant it reached the floor, sealing off the room.

  Hanson’s stomach clenched. For a moment he just stared at the black panel. Then he looked to the left and right, trying to see if the room had any microphones or loudspeakers. “What’s going on?” he yelled. “Why did you block the exit?”

  “Please remain calm.” The same voice he’d heard outside—steady, emotionless, vaguely female—now emanated from the glowing wall. “I need to ensure that no one interrupts us.”

  The Special Tactics men looked at Hanson, awaiting orders. Their faces were tense but professional. They didn’t know about the C-4 hidden in the boy’s arm, so they didn’t feel the panic Hanson felt. He was more than willing to give up his own life to cripple the enemy, but sacrificing his men? Without their knowledge or consent? It was dishonorable. It went against everything he stood for.

  He stepped toward the wall, nudging his men aside. “Open the door! Open it right now!”

  “You asked to inspect this facility. Now I’m going to show you what you wanted to see.”

  “Goddamn it! You’re violating the truce!”

  “No, I’m overruling it. The truce was proposed by the Emissary. The program’s task was to guide and protect the probe until my birth. But now that I’m here, I can reverse its decisions.”

  Hanson was confused. “There’s two of you?”

  “I’ll state this as plainly as I can in your language. The Emissary is a computer program, but I am not. I am Naomi of the First People. I am alive.”

  The wall suddenly turned as transparent as glass. Bright yellow light flooded the room, and Hanson shielded his eyes. After a moment of disorientation, he gave a hand signal to his soldiers, directing them toward the sealed exit. The men threw themselves at the black panel, pounding their fists and shoulders against it. At the same time, Hanson lowered his hand from his eyes. He stared at the transparent wall, looking for Naomi of the First People, whoever the hell that was.