by Alex Mersey
“There’s that blind loyalty again.” Sean folded his arms, a scowl sinking into his brow. “I don’t have any problem with the army, Cassie, I’m damn proud of our forces and their sacrifice for our country. But it’s a new world now, and maybe they don’t have the luxury of resources and time to do everything the right way.”
“All the more reason to follow orders, maintain discipline.” She stiffened, standing inches taller. “And for your information, this isn’t about blind loyalty. If Colonel Ainsley’s soldiers had arrived, they’d have been crawling all over the fort.”
“What exactly are we talking about?” demanded Beth. “Sean?”
He looked at Cassie another long, hard moment before rubbing a hand over his eyes and down his jawline as he turned to her. “Cassie’s right, I don’t think the pigeon made it through to base command and Colonel Ainsley.”
There was a whole lot more brewing to the conversation she’d witnessed, but Beth let it go. This was Sean and Cassie. Their relationship was defined by one undercurrent after the next. “How far is this base camp?”
“Two hundred and fifty kilometers south west,” Cassie answered. “They should get there in the early hours of the morning.”
Beth breathed easier. She had no intention of waiting around until reinforcements arrived from base command, but that was the beacon of hope if all else failed. The army had the numbers, the skill and the organization to mount a proper search and rescue operation.
The conversation turned to supper and Beth’s stomach growled. She’d eaten nothing since breakfast, hadn’t even thought of food. But Sean was right. She needed to keep herself strong, in mind as well as body. Sean borrowed a portable gas cooker from a neighboring house and Beth went with Cassie to the camp to fetch a large pot and chipping oil from the mess tent. She would have been happy enough to just break open an MRE, but Sean suggested they save the ready meals for when there were no other options.
Flashlights out, they tread over the lumpy field of wild grass and summer flowers to the tent line. The emptiness stole into her mood as Beth swept her beam of light across the clearing, sought out every shred of hope and stamped on it. SPU 14, Star Protocol Unit 14. Captain Davis’ broad face flashed before her mind’s eye. He hadn’t been able to stop this.
This unit of trained soldiers hadn’t been able to save themselves, let alone the town. What chance do I stand, even if I find where Alli has been taken?
Thoughts dwelling on the macabre, she crossed to the mess tent, flashlight still sweeping wide over the canvas flaps and shadows between. She almost missed it, the gaping blackness where the tactical vehicle was usually parked.
Cassie saw where her flashlight beam had frozen and called out, “It’s okay, I moved the tactical and LAVs.”
Beth spun about, flashlight aimed on Cassie’s face like a gun. Missing. Everywhere she turned, something was missing. People. Alli. Vehicles.
“Why?” she demanded, hearing the suspicion and challenge in her tone before she realized how true it was. Paranoia or good old fashioned common sense, she’d lost her trust in Cassie. In everything and everyone except for Sean.
Cassie heard, too, and didn’t appreciate it. She sized Beth up with a steely glare, mouth set in a stubborn line.
“Dammit, Cassie.” Beth strode up to her. “What are you hiding?”
“Only all our valuable supplies,” Cassie said thinly. “There aren’t enough of us to guard the camp, so I loaded all the weapons and ammo into the tactical. Medicine, too, and a good portion of our dry foods. There’s an auto body shop in the side street past the church and the workshop was large enough to hide the tactical inside. I couldn’t fit the light artillery vehicles in, so I drove them around the back of the gas station and covered them with canvas.” Cassie started moving before she’d finished speaking.
“Oh.” Beth dropped her flashlight arm as Cassie disappeared into the mess tent, feeling slightly sick to her stomach. This wasn’t her. Selfishly centered on her own fears and getting Alli back to the exclusion of anyone else’s grief. Flipping hot and cold with her suspicions and trust.
She’d grown callouses around her heart, she’d had to, but this…this didn’t make her stronger.
Jackson was broken over his missing brother and she’d barely given him the time of day.
Cassie had lost her unit, her captain, and yet she still functioned for the good of tomorrow and everyone else, did what needed to be done.
Williams didn’t even know it yet, but he’d lost his charge, the president’s son.
And Sean, he’d lost them all, and yet he’d still found the compassion to comfort her and the discipline to make them pace themselves.
We’re in this together. Beth had felt that, believed it, until she’d lost Alli. Now she had to get it back. No matter how bad things got, no matter how much she lost, she wasn’t in this alone and she had to be there for the others just like they were here for her. She had to pull herself together and do her share to keep them all moving forward.
A drop of water splattered her cheek. Those rain clouds were finally delivering on their promise with a steady drizzle. Beth turned her face skyward and let the heavens shower off the sweat and grime. The hopelessness and the constant dread were stuck tighter, rooted to the bone. As she stood there, though, letting the water slide through her hair and down her face, she felt the rain wash out some of the darker shades of gloom. She could do this. They would find Alli, and they’d find Lynn and Johnnie and Jake, they’d find every last person and bring them home.
Cassie came out from the tent, a gallon container of cooking oil under one arm, a deep pot tucked under the other. She looked at Beth and shook her head. “Thanks for the help.”
“Let me take that.” Beth relieved her of the plastic gallon container as they walked. “So, egg and chips for dinner, huh?” she mused out loud. “That was always a Sunday night treat in our house.”
“Protein and carbs,” Cassie said. “That’s a staple diet, not a treat.”
Beth tried again. “So, what’s your treat when you’re buying?”
Cassie sent her a sidelong glare.
“That means, what’s your favorite indulgence.”
“I know what you meant,” Cassie said. She thought for a couple of seconds, then accepted Beth’s truce. “White chocolate.”
They exchanged a long look in the peripheral beams of their flashlights as they walked, no spoken words required. A weight lifted from Beth’s shoulders. When she’d asked Sean, How do I find Alli?, he’d said it. You don’t. We do it together.
- 13 -
Chris
The sun blazed in from the wall of windows, burning the glare around Chris’ eyeballs. His mouth was bone-dry, his tongue felt two sizes too thick. He didn’t have much experience with hangovers, but this was the mother. And not just him. Everyone seemed to be coming awake with dazed expressions, blinking against the daylight and wetting their lips.
And the shouting.
That’s what had roused him.
A couple of men were going around, stooping to shake shoulders as they moved through the sleeping forms sprawled on the floors, over the sofas and armchairs, shouting, “Wake up! Get up!”
For a brief second, Chris was as confused as everyone else looked, then it all slammed back to him like a slap of cold water.
The all-consuming need to march, to follow. Co-existing with the people who’d walked alongside him, not connected, a cast of characters following a script everyone had memorized. Arriving at this facility, some sort of retreat or spa resort. The clean, almost clinical lines of the reception area. The treatments advertised by photographed models hanging on the walls. Turning left down the long, white passage while the women and younger children continued on ahead. Walking into this room, a spacious lounge with tall windows and comfortable furnishing. Curling into a fetal position on the floor, closing his eyes, drifting into the void.
The noise level increased as more and more men became
fully awake and started questioning, called for loved ones, cursed the Silvers.
Chris lifted himself from the floor, backed up into the corner as he looked around for escape. Claustrophobic dread closed around his throat. They were caged in. The fencing covered the walls and windows and blocked off the archway from this lounge into the passage. It clung to the walls like a bolted-in framework, wiry black chain links that appeared dusted in silvery ash. That hadn’t been there when they’d arrived…when? Yesterday, maybe. It felt like he’d slept a night, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Chris.” Doc Nate made a beeline for him, striding through the crush of rising panic as the realization rolled through the room.
We’re caged.
We didn’t resist.
We didn’t fight.
Like a flock of sheep, we walked ourselves straight into this prison.
Beside him, someone rattled the grating over the window. Tried to, anyway, it didn’t make the expected rattling sound. Chris turned to the window and tested it for himself. The silvery dust dispersed where his fingers wrapped around the metal, but thin as it was, the wire was solid, didn’t give an inch.
A group rushed the fenced entrance, bashed into it, kicked, pried at the thin wire. One man smashed a pedestal table against the wall to break off a leg. He used the wooden stake for leverage to see if he could bend the wire. The stake snapped in half without putting a kink in the wire.
Doc Nate reached Chris, took him by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Chris nodded, although he was far from okay. He felt sick to his stomach.
“We’re going to get out of here,” Doc Nate said.
How? Again, Chris just nodded. “What about Alli?” Beth? Rachel? Raven? He worked some saliva into his dry mouth. “Why did they separate us?”
Doc Nate grimaced, dropped his hands from Chris’ shoulders. “Listen to me, Chris, we know what the Silvers are capable of. If they wanted us dead, we’d be dead.”
If they wanted us dead, we’d be flurries of ash blowing in the wind.
Bile rose up Chris’ throat. “What did they do to us? Some sort of mind control?” He pressed a palm to the side of his head, disgust crawling under his skin like a live bug. “They can control us, make us do anything. They could make us—”
“That’s enough,” Doc Nate cut in firmly, a hand on Chris’ shoulder again, squaring a look on him. “At least we remember everything. It would be worse, not remembering what they made us do.”
Chris took little consolation from that. “What about the others? Why did they separate us?” His tone pitched higher with every question that could not be answered. “And what about Captain Davis? The soldiers? Where are they?” He looked around the room, not seeing any brown uniforms. “What do they want with us?”
“We just need to keep our heads straight,” Doc Nate said. “We’ll get out of this, Chris.”
“How did we get into it?” Chris hissed, furious with himself, with Raven. Some damn hero he was, unable to hold onto the one girl he’d managed to rescue, then getting himself caught.
“You don’t know?”
“I was in the forest,” Chris said. “How did six Silvers manage to subdue the entire town? They had to shoot each person, right? Tag them with that red laser beam to take control of their minds? Why didn’t more people run or hide? What the hell happened?”
Doc Nate scrubbed his brow, his eyes darting off Chris. “I’m not sure. I was in the clinic with Allira when we heard gunfire from the camp.”
“I heard that, too.”
“It didn’t last long. Just a couple of bursts. Then a short while later, Captain Davis came marching down the road, calling everyone to gather at the town hall for an emergency meeting. He sent his soldiers throughout the town, down to the river, to get the word out. We were told to bring everyone, children as well. I assumed there’d been an incident, a security breach.”
“There was.”
Doc Nate looked at him again. “We were all there, collected in the square outside the town hall, when the Silvers surrounded us. It was too late to run or hide. It all happened so quickly.”
There was plenty more Chris needed to know. Had Captain Davis deliberately led the town into a trap? How had it all happened so quickly with only six Silvers to surround them?
But just then the raucous atmosphere in the room dimmed, aggravated movement and heated voices gradually ceasing to a silence that drew his attention. His gaze swept over Mr Henderson, shoulders hunched, looking like he’d aged ten years in a day. Jake huddled with Todd and an older man who bore a strong enough resemblance to be Todd’s father. Bran leaning against the wall, his face ashen, clutching the wound at his side as if he had a cramp. Chris started in his direction and that’s when he saw why all eyes were turned toward the passageway. Three Silvers were approaching. So tall, thin, a milky white that appeared almost luminous, so very alien in every way. Chris’ heart thudded louder and slower as he watched the leading Silver come to a halt on the other side of the fence that kept them caged like animals in a pen.
One of the men stirred, a thickset man, wide jaw and steel gray eyes, dressed in oil-stained jeans and a flannel shirt. He took a step closer to the fence. “What do you want with us?”
“Hank,” a man behind him called in a low, warning voice. “We need to remain calm.”
“Fuck that,” came a hiss from the crowd, then the owner of that curse barged forward to join Hank at the fence. “Where are my kids? Hey, freak!” he yelled when the Silver didn’t look at him. He fisted the fence, pushing his face right up to the wire. “You’re not getting anything from me until I see they’re alive.”
“This isn’t a damn hostage situation,” someone drawled.
Chris didn’t move, barely breathed. Antagonizing the Silver didn’t seem like the smart thing to do.
A few more men charged up, shouting demands and curses, waving fists.
The Silver tilted his head and lowered his strange blue eyes to look at the men crushing forward, and spoke. “You are required to please stand back.”
The voice was tinny and robotic, like one of those recordings on the phone that talked you through the menu options. And it sent a hushed shock through the room. They speak our language. Goosebumps prickled Chris’ spine, as if this new fact turned the invasion a shade more sinister. As if that were possible. But the hush in the room didn’t last and Chris didn’t have long to contemplate why he felt that way.
Realizing they could be understood, another group of men surged forward, clambering against the fence, shouting, demanding. The other two Silvers stayed back, but the one up front raised his arm and it distorted, mutated into what looked like a stub-nosed rifle that formed an extension of the ethereal white skin.
Chris backed up against the wall as he watched. This time there wasn’t a targeted red laser. A shower of laser beams sprayed from the Silver’s arm, instantly subduing wherever the sprinkled beams touched. That’s how it happened so quickly. Six Silvers raining laser beams over the town square. The crowd pushing up against the fence went mute and still, arms dropped at their sides, heads slightly bent, eyes cast downward. Puppets waiting for their strings to be pulled. It wasn’t worse than death, but as a deterrent—having your will and conscious ability stripped away—it was enough.
The rest of the men backed away and the Silver retracted his weapon, the rifle seemingly absorbed back into his arm. A shudder coursed through Chris at the reinforcement of how unnatural these creatures were.
“It’s going to be okay,” Doc Nate whispered beside him.
Except it wasn’t. Chris wasn’t an idiot. The Silvers were going to a lot of trouble to subdue them, imprison them, instead of just vaporizing their human flesh into piles of ash. Whatever awaited them, he was pretty sure it would be the opposite of okay. What could the aliens possibly want them alive for? Experiments, vessels, food.
The Silver dragged his fingers down against the fence and it parted, or rather melted in
to a narrow opening. As soon as he’d stepped through, the black wires sprouted again like vines to link into the diamond-shaped pattern, resealing the fence behind him. Chris blinked hard, wondering if it was an illusion, a magic trick, but when he looked again, the Silver was in the room with them and the fence was intact.
The Silver tilted his head to a slight angle, the stretch exposing the arch of his narrow neck. Beady blue eyes worked the room, picking out each man and lingering, until he got to Mr Henderson and beckoned with a long index finger. “You will please come with me.”
Frank Henderson was a somewhat gruff man with snow white hair and a bushy beard. Easily in his seventies, but there was nothing frail or elderly about the way he carried himself. He stood taller, pushed his shoulders back and scowled up at the Silver. “Why don’t you try and make me?”
Chris sucked in a breath. It was hardly much of a challenge. The Silvers could make them do anything, go anywhere. To his surprise, this one didn’t tag Mr Henderson and take control of his mind.
The Silver beckoned again with that curled finger. “Your cooperation will be appreciated.”
Doc Nate spoke up. “Where are you taking him?”
“Nowhere,” Mr Henderson huffed. “I know what you’re capable of,” he said to the Silver. “But you obviously don’t want to zap me with that mind control stuff, or you wouldn’t be bothering with all this. So what now?” He stuck his jaw higher. “I’ll be damned if I make this easy for you.”
Mr Henderson was wrong. The Silver didn’t hesitate. His hand and the lower part of his arm mutated into that stocky rifle as he raised it and aimed at Mr Henderson. Fired. Not the red laser Chris was expecting, but a bluish white beam that struck Mr Henderson’s chest like a pinprick of light. It happened so quickly, Chris didn’t really see. One moment Mr Henderson stood there, facing off the Silver, and the next moment he gone. Flesh. Bone. Clothes. A puff of ash fluttering to the floor. Indrawn breaths and shocked gasps filled the room.
Chris gagged as he stared at the floating flakes of ash. His knees buckled and he would have gone down if Doc Nate hadn’t reached out to steady him.
