Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot

by Christopher Nuttall

  She spent the next three hours exhausting him, pushing Percy right to his limits before he collapsed into a stupor. She had enjoyed herself more than she had expected, but there was no time to delay. She slipped out of the bed and watched him for a moment to ensure that he was truly asleep, before slipping back into the dining room and opening her bag. She pulled out a pair of light gloves with one hand and the USB stick with another, slipping it into his laptop. The collaborators had full and uncensored access to the Internet, even in the heart of the secure zones. It was the work of a bare five minutes to install a macro to send her story for Committees of Correspondence from his laptop in two days, and then delete the evidence. It would take a computer expert to reveal that the message had come from that laptop, and no one would know that it had been her who’d sent it. Even if they decided Percy was innocent, he’d bedded so many that it would be hard to tell who’d installed the macro in the first place, or when. They might know when it was sent, but she doubted she’d still be bedding him by then.

  Smiling to herself, she pulled herself to her feet and walked back into the bedroom. Percy hadn’t moved at all from where she’d left him, so she slipped back into bed and pressed her breasts against his chest. He wouldn’t be able to claim that he’d not had his money’s worth from her. Not entirely to her surprise, he woke up twice in the night and pressed himself upon her again. She wasn't unwilling to play. The more he liked her afterwards, the more chance that he’d help her in other ways. She might even be able to turn him into a source for the resistance…

  “You passed the interview,” he informed her, the morning afterwards. He looked tired, but sickeningly happy. “After we’re finished in Chicago, you’ll be assigned to the new newspaper back in Washington. I'm sure you’ll make us proud.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Abigail said. She felt sore, yet there was a quiet undertone of triumph. If the message was sent properly, it had all been worth it, even if Percy called her back to his bed. And if Percy happened to get the blame from the aliens for sending the message in the first place…

  “You’re welcome,” Percy said. He pulled her over to him and pressed his lips against hers, hard. She felt his teeth pressing against her lips and tasted blood. His hands ravaged what was left of her dress, stroking her breasts and marking his territory. “Never forget who did it for you.”

  “I won’t, sir,” she promised him. Her lips hurt, but she still felt triumph. “I won’t forget a thing.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  London, United Kingdom

  Day 151

  The underground bunker – STRAKER – was deep under London. Unlike the better-known PINDAR, STRAKER was completely unknown to the public, although the more astute might guess at its existence and rough location. STRAKER was supposed to be proof against nuclear, chemical and biological attacks, yet the PJHQ analysts had questioned even its safety. The rocky armour protecting NORAD made STAKER look flimsy by comparison, and the aliens had taken NORAD out with a single projectile. If they targeted London in the same way, the entire city would be destroyed.

  Prime Minister Arthur Hamilton looked down at the table, and then up at the person facing him. It had surprised him to discover just how much money had been lavished on making the top government officials and civil servants feel comfortable in their secret nuclear bunker, even to the point of luxury apartments and extensive supplies of food and drink. The soldiers and the others who actually operated the bunker received far less consideration, although he had privately resolved that if they all did become trapped in the bunker, he was going to ensure that all of the supplies were distributed evenly. Britain’s nuclear policy had always been a little warped; considerable attention had been lavished on making sure that the government survived, yet they would return to the surface to assume control of a devastated nation and a resentful population, if the population survived. He’d read a top secret paper from MI5 that had suggested that the bunker would become the scene of a mini civil war between different aspects of the British State, the more so if there was no Britain to return to. It didn’t bode well, he’d thought, for the future – but then, someone would have to be out of their mind to consider starting a nuclear war.

  “The report comes from America,” the Prime Minster said, softly. “The President – ah, President Chalk – swears that we can trust the source, but they have no way of verifying it or even casting reasonable doubt.”

  Roi Avram met his eyes. The Israeli Ambassador to Britain was in an unusual position at the best of times. Regardless of the justice of his cause, Israel was increasingly seen as an illegitimate state by large portions of the British public, bearing the sole responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian people. The fact that Palestinians had been making life intolerable for Israelis for years, and that the Palestinians had been betrayed by their own government and fellow Arabs, had never registered on a population that had become increasingly suspicious of government and society. The collapse of America had been welcomed by some parts of society, the same parts that were now occupying detention camps on Dartmoor or up in the Scottish Highlands. They couldn’t tolerate rioting on British streets, not now.

  “The information states that the aliens intend to move against Israel very soon, perhaps within the next few days, and complete their conquest of the Middle East,” the Prime Minister continued. “Our own sources in the Middle East – those that have survived the invasion and occupation – have been unable to confirm or deny it for themselves, but we believe that the source can be trusted. Naturally, should your government claim that we provided advanced warning, we will deny everything.”

  “I liked to think that it would all be over,” Avram said, bitterly. “After the invasion, after the occupation…we liked to think that the threat was over, once and for all. Now…you’re telling us that the aliens intend to invade Israel? Why?”

  “We don’t know,” the Prime Minister admitted. “The analysts who looked at the issue thought that Israel was merely the most powerful nation in the region and they decided to save you for last, or maybe they don’t recognise any difference between Israeli and Arab and decided to halt at your borders merely to catch their breath. One of them thought that the source was being duped and it was intended to catch them, because taking Israel gives them nothing, but another headache. They already have enough problems with the Arabs.”

  “They’ve been using Arabs as occupation cadre in America,” Avram pointed out, coldly. “Our own sources report that they’ve been recruiting more from the cities and slums and offering them a chance to get their own back on the Great Satan. Thousands are taking them up on the offer, just to get out of the trap the Middle East has become. Do you think they intend to do the same to Israel?”

  “There’s no way to know,” the Prime Minister said. “There’s also no way for us to help you, at least…directly. We can probably give you some covert assistance.”

  “You can’t do anything,” Avram repeated. “You know, we had a few shining days of peace even before the aliens landed in the Middle East.”

  The Prime Minister nodded. The Arab Street had been delighted at the alien attack on America and had started screaming about taking the opportunity to march into Israel and push the Jews into the sea, once and for all. Their rejoicing hadn’t lasted long. The Prime Minister of Israel had gone on television, broadcast over the entire Arab world, and warned that Israel would launch a mass nuclear strike if anyone even looked at them funny. He’d been intimidating as hell, reading out a list of cities that would be thrown into nuclear fire…and Mecca had been on top of the list. The Arab regimes had panicked, declared martial law, and started stamping on their home-grown extremists, until the aliens had invaded and put a stop to it. There had been new riots and protests across Europe at the news, but by then successive European governments had been declaring martial law as well.

  “You also know the position of my government,” Avram continued. “Any attack on Israel, from any quarter,
will be responded to by overwhelming force.”

  “You mean you’re going to nuke the aliens,” the Prime Minister said. He wasn't sure how to feel about it, as if he were dead and numb inside. Viewed coldly, it might not be a bad idea to let the Israelis go ahead, just to see what would happen. The aliens hadn’t responded badly to the nuclear weapon that had been detonated at the South Pole, but they’d been on the verge of victory over America anyway. How would they respond to an Israeli nuclear strike? “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” Avram said. “Our policy has always been clear, unlike the Delphic utterances of other governments and politicians.”

  “Politicians always like their manoeuvring room,” the Prime Minister admitted. “I wish we could do more to help.”

  “Just take in the refugees when they start pouring out of Israel,” Avram said, bitterly. He looked up at the massive world map displayed on the big plasma screen. “We all grew up fearing that one day America would abandon us and Europe would fall to the Arabs in your streets, and then Israel would face the Day of Judgement. We all knew that one day we would have to remember – if we ever forgot – that war is about killing the enemy before he kills you, something you allowed yourself to forget. Even the Americans, even after Iraq, forgot that single truth.

  “We won’t surrender and we won’t leave our country,” he continued. “If they come for Israel, we’ll bathe them in their own green blood.”

  “Good luck,” the Prime Minister said. “We’ll see what we can do about sending you some covert help.”

  He watched Avram leaving, wishing he could help the man and his country. For all the public disdain, the truth was that Britain and Israel had both taken part in the massive anti-terrorist program and had shared intelligence on terrorists for the past forty years. Israel made a far more palatable ally than any of the Arab states – if it had as much oil as they had, it would be perfect. But the aliens were overwhelmingly powerful and the entire combined might of Europe would be insufficient to force them to stand down and leave Israel – or Europe – alone. The Israelis would be standing on their own. He felt weak and helpless to change the course of events.

  It dawned on him, then, that the weak must often feel ashamed.

  ***

  Two hours later, he hosted a small meeting in the bunker.

  “We have actually developed a system for generating a directed pulse of energy, as we discussed previously,” General Williamson said. “The aliens actually provided us with the solution. They might as well have handed us the lock with one hand and the key with the other. We actually built a prototype directed-energy weapon and tested it underground. It works extremely well.”

  The Prime Minister nodded. “How long until you can put it into mass production?”

  “It would depend on several factors,” General Williamson said. “The weapon is not, unfortunately, perfect. Basically, we use one of the alien batteries – the devices they taught us to produce – as the power source, surging out every last erg in the battery in one shot. That’s one bottleneck. The second bottleneck is that we’d have to set up for mass production first and then actually start producing the blasters – I’m afraid the name stuck – without attracting attention. The third…well, we can use their batteries everywhere. If we start suddenly having shortages…”

  The Prime Minister could follow his logic. Britain had been having energy problems for years because successive governments had refused to bite the bullet and admit that their search for renewable and green energy sources had been little more than a pipe dream. The aliens had provided a number of fusion power stations and taught the world how to make perfect batteries and the lights had come on again. The oil shortage that had driven millions of British cars off the road could be circumvented by using alien tech to power the cars…although the Prime Minister privately thought that having most of the nation’s cars off the roads wasn't a bad thing. The rest of the population didn’t agree.

  “They might start wondering where all the batteries are going,” the Prime Minister said. “Is there no way we can cut down on the time it takes to produce them?”

  “Probably not,” General Williamson said. “We might be able to produce more if we share technology with the French and Germans, maybe even the Japanese, but I don’t think we could speed things up that much. The French should cooperate, but the Japanese…”

  “I know,” the Prime Minister said. “They’re eating themselves over there.”

  His lips tightened. Japan had been hit badly by the invasion, even without the aliens actually striking a direct blow against them. The Japanese economy had been wrecked along with that of most of the rest of the world, while the war raging over in Korea had forced the Japanese military to try to take an active hand. The global shipping network that fed Japan had vanished. The collapsing government of Indonesia and dozens of African states had left hundreds of pirates in their wake, attacking global shipping and starving out Japan. The country was on the brink of collapse.

  Rumour on the internet had it that the Japanese were seriously considering launching an invasion of China just to snatch up food supplies, but it would be absolute madness. The Chinese Civil War might be raging on, yet the Prime Minister was certain that the one thing that would reunify China was another Japanese invasion. The Chinese had long memories and still hadn’t forgotten the Japanese invasion before the Second World War – for them, World War Two had begun with the Twenty-One Demands. The alien plan seemed to be working perfectly. If the Japanese did launch such a massive and desperate invasion, another human military force would be spent fighting other humans, instead of the common foe.

  He sighed. “We’ll make a covert approach to the French,” he said. “God knows what’s going on in Paris, but they should be willing to help…”

  “If they can help,” General Williamson muttered. The Prime Minister gave him an inquiring look. “The French have been very cagey about just how much trouble and strife hit their streets.”

  The Prime Minister remembered the reports and shivered. The British and American tourists in France had been rounded up and returned through the Channel Tunnel when the French economy shuddered and collapsed. The MOD had conducted interviews with all of them, but they hadn’t known much beyond chaos suddenly manifesting on France’s streets, along with the French Army. The brief discussions between the Prime Minister and his French counterpart – who seemed to change every week – were more informative. The French Government seemed to be playing musical chairs.

  “We’ll see,” the Prime Minister said. “Is there any more good news?”

  “Yes,” General Williamson said. “The researchers at Torchwood think they’ve finally found out how the alien craft tick.”

  The Prime Minister leaned forward. “What did they find?” He asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice. If they could crack the secrets of alien technology, the situation might not be so hopeless after all. “Something useful?”

  “I’m not a technician,” General Williamson admitted. “You’ll have to bear with me a little. From what we know of the alien technology, they generate a field surrounding their craft that somehow imparts momentum and a degree of protection. We used to think at first that it was a form of antigravity technology, yet the odd thing is that it’s not. It actually provides thrust…well, one of the researchers claimed that it was a rocket without the rocket.”

  “I’m sure that makes sense on some level,” the Prime Minister said. “How does that account for their speed and manoeuvrability?”

  “We knew from what happened to the Americans that the alien craft had problems manoeuvring at high speeds,” General Williamson said. “We now know that the reason they had problems was that the drive interacted badly with the atmosphere and that provided a limit on their ability to manoeuvre. Obviously, in space they had no such problems. We finally managed to get a handle on what they do to produce the drive field. Give us a few months and we might be able to p
roduce the first human-designed spacecraft with such a drive.”

  “My god,” the Prime Minister said. “We could kick them right off the planet!”

  “Maybe,” General Williamson said. “There are some problems with the concept. The first one is that the drive is an immensely complicated system. It is actually much more advanced than anything we produced for the Eurofighter, or the Americans produced for their space program, and duplicating it will take time. Deploying a fleet of such craft…it could take years, by which time they might own the Earth anyway.”

  “It’s too good an opportunity to pass up,” the Prime Minister said. “Is there no way we can shorten the timeframe at all?”

  “They did have two possible suggestions,” General Williamson said. “The first is that we could produce most of the spacecraft – the airframe and weapons – without the drives, and then install the drives once they’ve been constructed. At worst, we’d lose the resources we put into worthless airframes, but it should be worth doing. The second one is that we could try to steal drive units off the aliens.”

  “How the fuck do they intend us to do that?”