Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot

by Christopher Nuttall

Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chicago, USA (Occupied)

  Day 159

  “Enough games,” the alien said. “This farce has gone on long enough.”

  Commissioner Ted Hanks struggled to keep his face under control. The cold alien voice sent shivers down his spine, leaving his head feeling as if it were trapped in a vice. He couldn’t meet the alien’s eyes. He doubted that the aliens could read minds, as some had suggested, yet staring into his eyes was somehow impossible. They seemed to drain the life and soul of any human who gazed into them for too long.

  Beside him, General Imen Houssam looked little better. He’d been in command as Arab forces had advanced through the city, only to suffer humiliating setbacks and catastrophes. His forces had been winnowed, with over seventy-percent casualties, and atrocities on both sides. His noble intention of keeping down the bloodshed as much as possible had been worn down by the constant attacks, sniping and bomb explosions that echoed through the city. The insurgents in Iraq had been amateurs compared to some of the Chicago Resistance. Many of them would have fought in Iraq and picked up some of their tricks, others had developed newer weapons and technology. Ted still shivered at the thought of the remote-control airplane that had flown into his office and come within a hair’s breadth of killing him outright. Four police officers had been killed and seven more had been badly wounded. He’d gotten off lightly in comparison.

  And then, of course, there was the dead alien leader. No one knew what he’d been doing in the war zone, not even his fellow aliens, or so they said. They’d interrogated all of the humans nearby when the alien had been shot, leaving them all trembling wrecks, but they’d found nothing. The mystery was driving the aliens mad, Ted knew, and their rage knew no bounds. He’d found himself wondering, just after the alien leader’s death had been reported, how long Chicago would still be standing. If it hadn’t been impossible to evacuate his family, he would have done so. He didn’t want to leave them at Ground Zero if the aliens decided to drop antimatter bombs on the city, or even old-fashioned nukes.

  He looked up at the map he’d stapled to the wall, back when they’d been forced to move out of the Green Zone and into the suburbs. It had been a tacit admission of defeat. The resistance had been launching mortar rounds into the complex on a daily basis, making life hell for the inhabitants, along with a number of nastier tricks. The Order Police had lost its local commanders when one of their number had turned on the others, while the rank-and-file had been winnowed by drinking wood alcohol that someone had thoughtfully told them was safe to drink. They still hadn’t found out who’d been responsible for that act of terrorism, which meant that the Green Zone might as well have been in the heart of the fighting.

  “Sir,” he said, finally, “you might wish to consider a political solution…”

  A pair of dark eyes turned to stare at him. It was impossible to read emotion into the featureless dark orbs, but he was somehow sure that the alien was annoyed. They didn’t seem to react like humans; something that he’d decided was hardly surprising. They put up with comments and critical remarks from their Walking Dead, uncaring of the possible implications, or the loss of face. On the other hand, he wasn't one of the Walking Dead and seeing his wife staring nervously into his eyes every night only strengthened his determination not to become one of them. It was very tempting just to keep his mouth shut.

  “Explain,” the alien said, finally. There were no vocal cues, no hint of the alien’s true feelings. He might have been genuinely interested, or he might have been giving Ted enough rope to hang himself. “Why?”

  Ted tried to find the words, wishing he’d spent more time as a debater. “You launched this offensive with the aim of bringing Chicago under control,” he said, carefully. The alien still showed no sign of a reaction. “You intended to crush the resistance and you brought in local help to do it. Yet…you also convinced the resistance that they had nothing to lose by continuing to fight, leaving the streets running red and green with blood. They know that those who go into detention camps never come out again. Why should they not fight?”

  “This world is ours,” the alien informed him. The air shook slightly as a massive alien craft passed overhead. “We must settle our people upon this orb. We do not have time to deal with problems caused by the human race.”

  The voice was still emotionless, but Ted recognised the threat underlying the words. “Then tell me,” he said. “What do they have to lose? Why should they not fight?”

  There was a long uncomfortable pause. It was broken, oddly, by Houssam. “Ted is right,” he said. “You have the choice between coming to a political agreement with the insurgents, or crushing them like bugs, along with most of the city. If they have nothing to lose, why shouldn’t they fight?”

  The alien turned his great head to stare at the Arab. So did Ted. He’d realised that Houssam was a cut above the ordinary Arab soldier when he’d first met him, but he hadn’t recognised that he had a sense of…honour, or even justice. It would have been easy to disagree with the American and take the alien side, but Houssam had chosen to support him instead. Ted made a private promise that he’d treat him better, if they both survived the next few moments.

  “There is no acceptable political solution,” the alien said finally. “We cannot surrender this world. There is literally nowhere else to go.”

  Ted looked at Houssam helplessly. “There is an incident from the history of my country that may be worth considering,” Houssam said. “We had problems with fanatics who believed that their way to worship Allah was the only way to worship Allah, and any who chose a different way were sinners who deserved to die. They didn’t care how many Muslims they slaughtered in their mad campaign, for any good Muslim who died at their hands became a martyr and went to heaven. They were nasty opponents and fearsome savages.”

  “Your primitive superstitions are of no concern to us,” the alien informed him. Christian and Muslim shared a surprised look. Neither of them had seriously considered the existence of an alien religion, or lack thereof. “What is the significance of your story to our situation?”

  Houssam showed no sign of anger. “The Brotherhood kept telling everyone that they could govern better than the government and they gained recruits,” he said. “We gave them a certain amount of control over a few areas and allowed them to show us what they could do. They proved spectacularly incompetent at managing the affairs of human beings – some had to be removed by force, with the full support of the people, others mellowed and became part of the mainstream political process. You could try the same with the Chicago Resistance.”

  The alien swung his gaze back to Ted. “Do you concur?”

  Ted took a breath. “I feel that there is room for compromise,” he said. “You could offer Chicago limited autonomy and…”

  “You do not understand,” the alien informed them. “There is no room for compromise.”

  “But why?” Ted demanded, heedless of his own safety. “Why can’t you meet them halfway without wrecking the city?”

  “There are priorities that must be met,” the alien said. “You will await the arrival of warriors who will complete the task of burning out the resistance.”

  “But…”

  Houssam interrupted before Ted could go too far. “A question, if I may,” he said. “Do your people not believe in a single all-knowing God, Lord of the Universe, Creator of Everything?”

  “Our race evolved from a combination of related species on our homeworld,” the alien said. “It was a result of semi-random development and later careful cross-breeding between different castes. We learned how to improve ourselves and reach for the stars. Your race was held back by your belief that a Creator-God would reach out an invisible hand and save you from the consequences of your own actions. We have no need to believe in an unknowable, unproven entity. The crimes your people commit in the name of your benevolent God, who actively forbids such evil, is proof that such an entity does not exist. He would hardly h
ave tolerated such blasphemy.”

  There was a pause. “You may leave,” the alien said, finally. “Go.”

  Ted asked a question he’d been wondering about for days now. “Sir,” he said, “did you learn why one of your leaders was in the war zone?”

  “He did not belong to our faction,” the alien informed him. Ted stared at him. It was the first hint he’d heard that not all of the aliens thought the same way. “His actions and intent remain unknown. You may leave.”

  And if that wasn't a hint of frustration in the alien tone, Ted knew, he’d eat his hat.

  “Perhaps that’s the solution,” Houssam said, as soon as they were outside. “We should convert them all to the faith and the war would end.”

  Ted snorted. Perhaps the aliens were listening to them, but he no longer cared. After what the aliens had done to a harmless town, his entire police force would be branded as worthless collaborators. “How would you get one of them in a Burka?”

  “It would be an improvement,” Houssam said. Ted couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud. “Or you could get them converting to Christianity. Perhaps they could even become Jews!”

  “How,” Ted asked, “would we circumcise them?”

  “Allah would show us the way,” Houssam said. They stepped out of the alien building, past a pair of silent warriors who peered at them from under their protective facemasks, before returning to their positions. “Who else could help us now?”

  Ted looked over into the distance, towards where yet another alien transport craft had landed and begun to disgorge another unit of warriors. The alien force seemed impossibly huge, marching towards staging areas for their attack on Chicago. They looked utterly ruthless and implacable, focused on just one objective. Victory.

  “No one,” he said. They were tainted with the same brush. They would both be treated as treacherous collaborators if the human side won. The remaining police – those who hadn’t deserted – would be lucky if they were only lynched. He was due to visit the hospital later and visit the wounded policemen. What would they say, he wondered, when they heard what the aliens had done? “There’s no one at all.”

  ***

  Abigail watched as a flight of alien fighters raced overhead, heading towards Chicago and buzzing the city. They’d been doing it for hours now, yet it had taken her almost as long to realise why. The resistance had responded to the alien fighters by launching SAM missiles at their craft, but the aliens had merely accelerated and left the missiles behind, allowing them to fall harmlessly to the ground. It forced the resistance to either expend their limited supplies or allow the aliens free reign over the city’s skies. She hoped they had the sense to hold their fire and wait for the crucial moment. The weapons would be useless if they were fired off too soon.

  She looked down at the article she’d written in her PDA, a puff piece covering the deployment of alien medical staff and technology to human hospitals that housed insurgents and collaborators alike. It promised that alien tech that could restore sight, lost limbs and even sexual potency would soon be available to all, free of charge. It would have been an impressive promise, one that would have won the aliens thousands of new allies, except there was one little flaw. It was all lies, damned lies.

  Abigail had finally been allowed to visit the hospital two days after her tryst with Percy. She’d seen emergency rooms before, housing hundreds of victims from fires or worse, but the hospital had been right out of the Crimean War. The Order Police were the luckiest, while the Arabs tended to be treated like dirt by their own leaders and American doctors and nurses alike. The thousands of wounded – she’d heard that the resistance had left them alive purposely, just to put a drain on their resources – lay on beds, cots or even the bare floor, permanently waiting for treatment that would never come. The trained medical staff tended to ignore their complaints or pleas for help, although one of the nurses had told her that there had been a nasty incident and all the female nurses insisted on an armed escort before they tended to any of the Arabs. The hatred wasn’t all one-sided either. Someone with a nasty sense of humour had included outdated medicines in the supply packages and hundreds of wounded had died before the trick was discovered. The Order Police, apparently, hadn’t found out who’d carried out the mass poisoning. Rumour had it that they hadn’t even bothered looking.

  She could well believe it, for it was blatantly obvious that no one cared about the Arabs, once they were wounded and out of the fight. She’d spent only twenty minutes in the ward, moving from bed to bed, before she’d finally given up and left the hospital tent. The sight had been sickening. No one, not even the worst collaborator, should have to go through such an experience. It reminded her of just how much humanity had accomplished since developing technology. Life in the Dark Ages had been nasty, brutish and short. The Arabs had little hope of survival.

  And no one knew what happened to the resistance fighters who were taken prisoner by the aliens. Few surrendered in the first place – the vast majority of captured insurgents were badly wounded – and those that did were transported out of the area, to…where? Abigail had no idea and she suspected that no one else human knew, even Percy or one of the other minders. The aliens might have taken them to a detention camp, or they might have simply dumped them into space. Who knew what the aliens did with their prisoners? For all she knew, they might just ritually slaughter them and eat their hearts.

  She glanced down at her watch and hurried out of the area, wincing slightly as another alien craft passed overhead. They’d been told that the aliens were bringing in reinforcements – aliens this time, not more humans – and that they would be expected not to mention that fact in any of the puff pieces they’d been writing about the war. If the official figures were to be believed, the entire city had been depopulated several times over. It wouldn’t take much research to discover that Chicago had suddenly acquired a much larger population, one that only existed in the minds of propaganda writers. She reached the main hotel and stopped. There was a commotion taking place ahead of her.

  The Order Police had arrested people before in front of the reporters – they hadn’t been allowed to mention them, of course – and the experience had always been traumatic. And they’d arrested reporters too, just to show them who was boss. A male reporter had been snatched off the streets, taken to a basement interrogation cell, and put through his paces before being released, without explanation. A female reporter had been taken into an Order Police van and ordered to give them all oral sex, or spend the rest of her life behind bars. Abigail suspected that the only reason she’d been spared was because Percy had marked her out for greater things, or perhaps simply as his. After they’d destroyed an entire town, the reporters had become a great deal more careful around the Order Police, shunning them whenever possible. It wasn't easy.

  She found a vantage point and stared. The person being dragged out, in handcuffs, was Percy, shouting about his innocence all the way. Abigail felt her heart beating faster as she covertly sought cover, for she knew what had happened. Her little time bomb in his computer had been traced back to him and he'd been blamed for being one of the secret writers. The Committees of Correspondence would probably end up hailing him as a martyr, turning him into a hero. They wouldn’t know the truth. No one would, if she had a say in it. Percy might have forced her into his bed, and she wanted him to pay for that, but turning him into another alien victim would make them wonder how many other humans they could trust.

  The van was parked just outside the hotel, but it took four policemen to subdue him and finally toss him into the rear of the van. The doors slammed loudly enough to deafen anyone inside and the policemen glared around them, forcing the crowd back through strength of will – and fear. Abigail melted away with the remainder of the crowd and didn’t breathe easily until she was safety back in her room, such as it was. Her mind was spinning. Percy would never call her back to his bed again. Her promised promotion would probably never materialise. She m
ight become a suspect if they believed his claims of innocence…

  She shook her head. It didn’t matter. All she had to do, now, was write a new article hailing Percy as a hero, and watch as the aliens scrambled to test their human allies. Their paranoia would do the rest. They might reduce Chicago to rubble, but they’d never feel safe again. No matter how many towns they wrecked, no matter how many lives they destroyed, Earth would never be their home.

  Poor bastard, she thought. Now that Percy was gone, she almost felt well-disposed towards him. Your death will not be in vain.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chicago, USA (Occupied)

  Day 162

  Edward Tanaka ducked instinctively as an alien fighter craft roared over Chicago, searching for enemy targets. He silently prayed that none of the remaining SAM teams would unleash one of the few remaining Stingers against the alien craft, for they’d learned through bitter experience just what the aliens were doing. The moment the alien craft detected an incoming threat – a missile or even antiaircraft fire - they would gun their engines – or whatever they used – and race away at hypersonic speed, leaving the missile to crash somewhere within the city. It was too much to hope that it would come down on an advancing enemy unit’s head.

  He scowled as he scrambled back up to his vantage point. The alien craft were normally silent, although he’d heard people say that they produced a faintly audible hum when someone was far too close to one. “Close enough to bend over and kiss your ass goodbye,” they’d said, and he was starting to suspect that they were right. The alien craft would have done much more damage with better weapons, yet even just screaming over the city, they were keeping men and women awake. Some of the resistance fighters had had to be sedated to allow them to get some sleep, which resulted in them having to be dragged to the next hiding place as the ground forces advanced. Chicago wouldn’t be a bastion of resistance for much longer.