Genetic Drift

by Martin Schulte

  “I thought I was helping you. It looked like you needed me,” Hope told Maddie. “What happened? Did I do something wrong?” she asked Maddie.

  Before she answered Hope, Maddie asked Rho, “Did we do what we needed to do?”

  “Yes, we modified the directive with a choice to join us. Unfortunately, we cannot see if the modification has been changed. This facility is no longer connected to the network interface infrastructure,” Rho made Maddie aware.

  “No, Hope, just don’t do that again. The queen mother disabled the network once it found out that you were an Inject too,” Maddie explained to Hope. She motioned for Hope to follow her and went to Ben.

  “There’s nothing here,” Marcus said as he eased down his weapon. Quill and Ethen followed suit and stood down from their alert. Marcus noticed that the others were circling around Ben. “You guys want to see what’s going on?” he asked Ethen and Quill.

  “You guys go ahead,” Quill answered. Ethen was relieved that they weren’t under attack and walked over to Ben. Quill was still breathing heavy. He continued to scan the walls, consistently returning his focus to the stairwell. After keeping his focus on his search pattern, he decided to sit down facing the doorway where they had entered the room.

  Ben stared intently at the map. “It’s not going to update. This is the best you are going to get,” Maddie said.

  “Ask your friend how accurate this map is and can we see this area?” Ben asked as he pointed toward a spot on the map.

  Maddie turned around to face the map. She hadn’t paid attention to the map while she and Rho were using the interface. The map showed red in places where humans were no longer fighting against the Trolls. The entirety of Europe was red. India and the Eastern part of China were also red. Africa was pockmarked with red and South America was painted with the same color except for the Amazon basin. Maddie walked up to the two poles and placed her hands on them once again. “Rho, we need to zoom in on North America. It’s where we are,” Maddie thought to Rho.

  The map shifted and centered on North America, then zoomed in to the eastern portion of the continent. The red areas became more defined. New England was completely red. The redness on the map went away the more rural the areas became. The map zoomed in closer to Tennessee. Washington, Richmond, Norfolk, Raleigh, Charlotte, Knoxville, and Nashville were all red. Charlottesville was also covered in red. The surrounding areas were either without color or red. “The red areas indicate where there is no human resistance to the conquest,” Rho explained to Maddie.

  “That’s where I need it,” Ben told Maddie then asked, “Can your friend bring up where the alien bunkers are located?” Yellow and green dots popped onto the map. Many yellow dots surrounded a lesser number of green dots. “So the yellow dots indicate the bunkers and the green dots must indicate these fortresses,” Ben said so everyone could hear him. “There are eight bunkers within 25 miles of us,” he was thinking aloud. Ben took his eyes away from the map and told Maddie, “I think it’s about time that me, you, and your friend have a discussion.” Maddie’s hands came off of the poles. She turned towards Ben eager to find out what he was thinking.

  “We are ready whenever you want,” she said.

  “I will give you all of the answers Maddie. You don’t have to ask me everything he asks. I can hear whatever you hear,” Rho informed Maddie.

  “What is claiming it is going to destroy us?” Ben asked.

  “That was the queen mother. It knows that we are together,” Maddie answered without Rho guiding her.

  “When will it attack us?” Ben asked another question.

  “We don’t know. The queen mother will probably send whatever it can to eliminate us,” Maddie said with Rho’s help.

  “Now that your friend caused us to be attacked, what was the use of those two poles?” Ben pointed to the interface as he asked pointedly.

  “We were asking the Trolls to help us,” she told Ben. “But to help us, we had to challenge the queen mother’s leadership and authority. We had to change the current directive.”

  “Then who is coming to our aid? Will they get here before we are attacked? It doesn’t do us any good if we’re dead before they get here,” Ben wanted to know what resources they had.

  “It’s about free choice. They are free to come as they wish,” Maddie answered for Rho.

  “So when an alien walks up to us, we won’t know whether it’s going to kill us or join us?” Ben asked.

  “It isn’t anything that either you or I can control. It’s better than fighting every one of them, isn’t it? By the way, do you know that we are in a terraformer, not a fortress? They are trying to change the land to be like their old planet,” Maddie again spoke with Rho’s guidance.

  “Yeah, I figured that out with all of the purple crap outside. And, I can control my actions against these Trolls. So, unless I know whether they are for or against us, I can only assume that they are enemies,” Ben told Maddie and then he pointed to the dead Troll. “Just like that one over there.”

  Maddie followed his finger to the dead Troll. She pondered a way to convince Ben that not all Trolls would be bad. Rho gave Maddie an idea, “Tell him that they will not be the ones shooting at us. They will be the ones waiting outside for new directives.” Maddie turned back to Ben.

  “We, me and Hope, will be outside to give the Trolls new directives and they will help us,” Maddie said.

  “Again, how will we know the difference between the good ones and the bad ones?” Ethen got a chance to ask his question and he wanted an answer.

  “For right now, why don’t we mark them?” Jay proposed as he reached into his pocket. His hand withdrew a marker that came from the laboratory at Camp Phoenix. “With this, can’t we mark them some way so we can tell the difference between them?”

  “That’s as good an idea as any of us can come up with,” Marcus let his thoughts out.

  Ben looked at Marcus and nodded in agreement. “We aren’t going to have much time to prepare. Maddie… you, Hope, and her brother go to the entrance of the place and watch for Trolls. Marcus, you go with them. Tactical marks on the face. Ethen, you stay here with me and we will review the map and see where the Trolls can attack us from. And Quill…” Snoring reverberated from the floor behind them. Quill lay fast asleep on the floor. He was jerking at random intervals but was hard asleep. “Quill, you stay there.”

  DAY 285

  SUMMONING FORCES

  THE ELLIPSE

  Omega, the queen mother, had decided on the best course of action to rid itself of any and all opposition. Omega had to balance the need for terraforming to sustain life in the Syrsyrian bodies and the need to eradicate the human interveners. The surviving humans across the world were becoming more of a nuisance and more difficult to eliminate. Omega’s sights were set on Tennessee where the usurpers and humans had overtaken a terraforming unit. After all, this was the first terraformer taken and its loss would slow down the area’s growth.

  Omega reviewed the current directives sent out to the deployed units. Locate and assimilate the indigenous humans. Eliminate human threats. Enable the terraforming to begin. Maintain contact with the queen mother for updated directives. Choose to be an individual and find Rho.

  What is this? Omega was unable to control the feeling. Anger started to fill its blue body. Anger, a new feeling, a feeling that a being such as Omega shouldn’t know or feel. Omega had been so focused on expanding its consciousness that it did not have time for trite feelings like anger. Omega quickly refocused the efforts to squash the anger. How did that short-sentient change the directives? Omega erased all the directives in North America. The other continents were going as the queen mother planned. It placed only one directive into the network that delivered the information to the bunkers nearest to the terraformer that housed Rho and Maddie. Find and eliminate Rho and its human vessel. Now every Troll nearby would abandon its tasking and search for Rho. There was no doubt about their directive. The terrafo
rming would have to wait until the biggest threat against the Trolls had been eliminated.

  Omega did not consider that some of the Trolls might have already known about the Rho directive. The first places Omega would gather forces from would be the bunkers closest to the terraformer that housed Rho. Omega thought that an immediate assault would be best and it would be the quickest way to rid itself of the humans.

  DAY 286

  WILL WANDERS

  INTERFACE ROOM

  “Oh no, it happened again.” Will was frozen to the ground, his hands, palms down, were holding him in place. The smell of gunfire entered his nose and his eyes nervously looked around the room. The last thing he remembered was being outside of the camp and the General speaking to them about the possibility of attack by the aliens. Will pushed himself up to the sitting position and saw two men looking at a map on the wall. One man was Ben. He remembered Ben from Roanoke when he offered to take him away from the alien-infested rat hole where he was staying. The other man he did not know. He thought he remembered him from the trip but couldn’t quite remember what he did or who he was.

  He decided to ask them for help. “Excuse me guys, can you tell me where I am?” his meek voice asked.

  “Stop messing around Quill. I’m glad you got rest but you can come over here now,” Ben told him without looking back. Ethen turned around to see Will getting to his feet.

  “What am I wearing?” Will asked himself. He looked down at his clothing, “This is definitely not what I was wearing when I left the hospital.” Will walked up to Ben and Ethen. He observed the redness of the map. “What are you guys looking at?” Will asked.

  “We’re looking at the map of the Trolls. Did something happen to your brain while you were sleeping?” Ben asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Will responded as he scratched the back of his head.

  “Quill, we really don’t have time to explain this to you. Why don’t you look around and explore what assets we have around here?” Ben barked.

  “Well, um, okay, just so you know, I’m not Quill. I’m Will,” Will told Ben but neither of the two men paid him any attention.

  Will had no idea where he was or where he was supposed to go. He turned around and noticed a doorway in front of him. He approached it and noticed that there were stairs that went up and down. Will analyzed the stairwell and decided that going up would be his best option. He timidly took his first step and looked up to see if he would encounter anything. He took another step and looked up again. Each step he repeated the process until he finally made it up to the next level. He stood in front of an open door and was mesmerized by all of the color. Purple, blue, green, filled his vision as he gazed upon the flora. There were beautiful plants as far as the eye could see. It was an arboretum.

  He looked down at the threshold and noticed that there was something purple at the front of the area but it did not come into the stairwell. A perfect line formed separating the inside and outside of the room. “Well, he said to check things out.” Will took a step into the beautiful room. The scent of trees and grass was exactly like the forest outside Roanoke but the plants looked nothing like it. He lifted his head and took a deep breath through his nose. A grin pierced through his normally anxious disposition. Will thought this was a pleasant place.

  Will walked up to a small tree. He gently touched the blue leaf sprouting from the branch. His gentle touch turned into a rub between his thumb and forefinger. His hand pulled away and some of the blue from the leaf transferred to his fingertips. He wiped his hand on his pants as he looked closely at the orange bark. The bark was scaly. He tried to pry some of it off of the tree. It wouldn’t budge since the bark interlocked and was packed tight. It seemed like a harmless plant and he left it alone.

  Will turned around and noticed the wall. “If I follow the wall then I can easily find my way back to the door,” he said as if someone was there to listen. He walked to the wall and ran his hand against it. He looked to his left and decided it was safe. His steps were less timid now and he started walking. “How in the world did I get here?” he asked as he stayed close to the wall.

  The blackouts had been excessive since the alien arrival. They used to happen when he felt a fear for his life. He thought they would have stopped by leaving the hospital but this blackout was not like the others. He had never woken up in a place he had never seen. The doctor had told him that he suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder. He called it DID. Will knew about his alter ego Quill but had not given him much attention until now. He thought that Quill was his protector. Quill showed up when Will couldn’t handle a situation when his life was on the line. Will needed to comfort himself and make sense of this new place.

  Will walked past another small tree. This one was red with blue leaves. The next tree had the orange bark and the same blue leaves. He looked around and noticed that all of the trees had blue leaves. “No green,” he said as he inspected the leaves. Each time his fingers came away from the leaves, he would have to wipe the blue residue from his fingertips. He repeated his inspections on every tree while walking next to the wall.

  He continued his stroll until he met some underbrush. He peered through the strands to find the floor and looked for the safest way to navigate. There were no thorns, just blue leaves attached to blood red cordons. He found an open patch and stepped delicately on the ground. He looked for another place to step and found another clearing. He took his second step and his feet were pulled from under him.

  Will fell face down to the ground as the cordons began to reel him away from the wall. Sliding feet-first on his belly, he struggled to turn around and see where he was being dragged. Will managed to twist his torso to face the direction his body was traveling. He wished he hadn’t. A huge red plant that was equally as red as the cordons was dragging him perilously close to its base. A red trapdoor that was the mouth of the plant opened right above the ground. Will was trying to grab anything he could get his hands on. The young trees didn’t leave much on the ground for him to grab. Then his hand hit upon his blade.

  He went up and came down with a small thud as he was dragged over a root. The motion was enough to make the blade easy to grasp. Will grabbed the hilt and extracted the blade. He began to viciously slice anything that wasn’t him around his feet. He sliced and he chopped and he cleaved. The cordons were flying outward each time he pulled his blade back to reattack.

  With one last swing, he stopped three feet away from the trapdoor of the plant. The door closed in front of him and he stayed sitting in his position. He could feel his heart racing and he couldn’t stand up quite yet. He looked down and saw the cordons were no longer wrapped around his feet. After a deep breath, Will stood up. The mouth was as tall as he was and perfectly masked by the trees from a distance. Black dirt was smeared in his clothes and on his skin. His forearm attempted to wipe some of the dirt away from his eyes and nose but only left a streak of black. “I think we have had enough here.” Will was weak-kneed and turned to face the wall. It was a good 200-feet away. He took a step and looked back at the plant making sure that it wasn’t going to try to grab him again. He took another step with no reaction from the plant and then he sprinted to the wall avoiding any possible contact with the cordons.

  Once Will made it to the wall, he ran to his right toward the doorway. He passed by all of the blue-leaved trees that he had examined before. The purple moss bunched together revealing the black dirt underneath as Will slid to a stop in front of the stairwell. He regained his balance and grabbed the doorway. He pulled his body through and restarted his sprint down the stairs. As Will rushed through the door to the interface room, he screamed, “There’s a killer plant in there!” His screams were met with silence and nobody was in the interface room to hear him.

  “Where could they be?” Will asked himself as he spun around. Of the two doors, he didn’t know which way he had come into the room. He knew that taking the stairs resulted in a terrible experience, so he decided to take
the other door. He walked into a corridor that had closed doors on his left and right. Since they were closed, he didn’t bother trying to go through them. “Another set of stairs?” he asked as he looked down the same way the Troll had lead him when his mind was switched to Quill. He took a deep breath as he went down the stairs, “I hope there aren’t any killer plants down here.” He made it down the stairs unharmed and continued down the hallway that he, Maddie, Hope, and Jay had walked through. He made it to a split and he could either go forward or to his right. Since he could see bodies on the floor if he went forward, he thought it would be better to try the path with less carnage.

  He walked over a dead Troll and then around something that looked like a scorpion to meet with the door outside. He poked his head outside to see Ben and Ethen talking to Hope and Maddie, and three Trolls were behind them. He felt a blackout coming, “No, I’m not going to freak out this time.” He watched as they talked and the Trolls just stood there, not attacking.

  After a few minutes of watching, his curiosity took over. He walked outside and asked his fellow humans, “Are we friends with them now?”

  Maddie turned to him and said, “Quill, I told you they were going to help us.”

  “I’m Will. Why do I have to keep telling you people?” he replied as he came closer.

  “Okay, Will, they are joining us,” Ethen remarked.

  Will walked up to Ben while keeping his stare on the Trolls, “That’s great that they joined the fight but did you know there are man-eating plants in there?” He pointed back at the terraformer.

  “No, but it wouldn’t surprise me,” Ben answered.

  “Yeah, I would have told you sooner but you left me in there… alone,” Will said.