Stephen Molstad - [ID4- Independence Day 03]

by War in the Desert (epub)

  “That’s a good start,” he said. “But can you grow my fingers back?” The alien no longer seemed interested. It turned away and began walking toward the open room. It stopped when it came to the end of the leash and felt the belt tug at his throat. After a moment of hesitation, Reg followed the alien out of the hallway.

  The dimly lit space around them was quadruple the size of the largest domed sports arena on Earth and was filled with softly pulsating light. In addition to the spotlights of false daylight coming from the ceiling, there was a strobing, flashing light coming off the floor. As they walked farther into the room, they discovered the source of this strange light.

  Huge slabs of the same amber-colored substance had been set into the sloping, bowl-shaped floor in the shape of a flower. Each petal was the size of a soccer field and was glowing a warm orange color through the darkness. A few strides brought them to the end of the nearest petal. It was cracked and broken. In places, large chunks were missing after being damaged during the ship’s crash. There was evidence that something or someone had been collecting the missing sections and setting them back into place like the pieces of a mammoth jigsaw puzzle. As with the plate of the same material Tye had found in the back of the jeeps, the glassy “petals” were emitting a shifting pattern of light. Blurred, fast-moving images streaked across the surface, but were unintelligible to the humans. A long walk from where they were standing, down at the eye of the flower, there was an amber lump that stood on a pedestal several inches above the floor.

  “Okay, W'e’re here,” Reg told the alien. “Where’s the box?”

  Still eager to help, the creature communicated another cluster of associated ideas. The box, it told them, lay open on top of a worktable in one of the laboratory rooms at the far side of the tower; it gave them the exact location and showed them the best path to take. The instructions were so clear that any one of the humans could have drawn a map. The alien began to shuffle its feet, prepared to lead them to the spot.

  “We don’t need that thing anymore,” Ali said, gesturing toward their alien guide with his weapon. He was more convinced than ever that they were being led into a trap. Telepathic assurances aside, the crumbling spires that rose on both sides of the path they would take offered the perfect hiding places for snipers. “We know where we’re headed. We can go by ourselves. Edward and Yossi, you come with me. The rest of you wait here for us. We’ll be back soon. I hope.”

  The three men jogged off without any further discussion and quickly began to fade from view behind the screen of eerily pulsating light. Reg pulled the Tall One back toward the shelter of the entrance hall and maintained a watchful attitude, while Tye and Fadeela moved deeper into the room and explored the erratically flashing light of the flower.

  “It’s the mother of all medallions,” Tye said, “the heart of their tracking system.” He pulled one of the small medallions out of his pocket and felt it drawn toward the floor, like iron to a magnet. When the small disk touched his skin and activated, the pattern it showed was a representation of the huge flower-shape that lay stretched out below him. “Hmmm. I wonder what happened to all those little diamond shapes.”

  “I think I know,” Fadeela told him, pointing toward the amber blob at the center of the flower. “There they are.”

  Cautiously, the two of them walked down toward the spot where the petals came together and examined the glowing lump set on the pedestal. It seemed to be made of the same material as the broken amber slabs around them, but it was definitely alive. It was a foot-tall mass of semiliquid biomatter contained within thin membrane walls. Its body produced a phosphorescent light from within, except on one side, where the skin was black.

  “Looks like an octopus,” Fadeela said, her lip curling in disgust. “Looks like a big brain to me.”

  “A brain with legs?”

  A series of thin arms grew from the bottom of the transparent blob and reached out to connect with each of the eight gigantic petals. Where they attached to the blob, these arms looked as moist and frail as a snail’s body, but solidified as they fused with the surface of the amber material. Beads of an oily liquid ran down the organism’s sides like sap leaking from a tree.

  “There are your diamonds,” Fadeela said, pointing toward the black spot on the blob’s flank.

  Tye squatted for a closer look and realized she was right. Except for a very few strays, all of the tiny diamonds had clustered in one spot on the side of the bloblike body. He thought it over for a minute before asking a question. “At-Ta‘if is to the north, isn’t it?”

  “The northwest. Why?”

  Tye glanced around the interior of the tower to get his bearings. “So northwest is that direction,” he said, pointing. Fadeela understood what he was getting at. The dark diamonds had all clustered on the northwest wall of the gelatinous body.

  “So, this octopus is keeping track of where all the aliens are. And Edward was right about the radio reports. They’re attacking At-Ta‘if.” They noticed that the petal extending in the direction of the battle was flashing and pulsing much more rapidly than the others.

  “That must be how it works,” Tye said. “Now, if each of these petals functions like a giant medallion, they won’t work unless they’re being touched by some living thing. We could royally screw the alien army by killing this brain-thing. Their whole tracking and guidance system would shut down.” Tye pulled a knife from the leg pocket of his uniform and was about to plunge it into the soft body when the alien “spoke” urgently from the distance, offering some insights into the flower-shaped apparatus.

  This time, the interconnected telepathic ideas were embedded in a background sensation of painful loss. Although it was not a human emotion, both Tye and Fadeela winced with sadness the moment they felt it. It was a deep feeling of separation and the aching wish to be reunited. They quickly realized that these feelings were coming from the lump of biomatter that sat sweating on the pedestal. Somehow, the alien was making it possible for them to feel what the simple organism was feeling: an intense chronic sadness, the same traumatic sense of loss a mother feels for her stolen children.

  The emotion suddenly vanished and the Tall One explained to them: that every piece of the amber material, down to the tiniest sliver, knew where all the other pieces were; that the magnetic attraction between the fragments was a result of a desire to be rejoined; and that the amber-oozing creature at the center of the device was, in many respects, like a human—filthy with excrement, semi-intelligent, and wallowing in base emotions.

  When the explanation was over, Tye backed away from the blob remorsefully. “I can’t do it,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his last two medallions. “Go on, be free,” he said to the disks, as he tossed them toward their parent. “Go keep Big Mama company.”

  “Michael, you were right!” Fadeela said. “We have to kill this thing. Their whole navigation system will crash.”

  Tye knew she was right, but hesitated and stared down at his shoes. The Tall One had left him with a deep sympathy for the tortured creature, which the aliens had been holding as a prisoner for who-knew-how'-long. He turned the knife over and over in his hand, trying to gather the strength to murder the poor animal, when he noticed something moving between his feet. Something was on the story below, on the floor of the exit bay.

  He dropped to his knees, pressed his face close to the semitransparent flooring material, and cupped his hands around his eyes to block out the strobing light. He saw what looked like a trio of small manta rays swimming through murky water, but quickly realized they were three alien skulls seen from above. They were making their way toward the taproot, and one of them was holding a square silver object in its arms.

  “What are you doing, praying?” Fadeela asked. When Tye didn’t answer, she turned away to deal with the blob animal herself.

  As carefully and quietly as possible, Tye stood up and began to walk back toward the spot where Reg was standing guard over the captive alie
n. He realized that the Tall One had deceived them. Instead of luring them into a trap, it had led them up here on a wild-goose chase in order to give the others time to complete their plan of poisoning the region’s water supply.

  “Where are you going now?” Fadeela demanded.

  “Back in a minute,” he answered as casually as he could manage. He thought he could hide his thoughts from the alien. “Just need to talk to Reg for a moment.” To distract himself from what he’d learned, he began to whistle as he walked. But he was too nervous to carry a tune. The closer he came to Reg, the stronger became his desire to turn around and walk the other way. He didn’t realize what was happening at first and pushed himself forward. His pace grew slower and slower, as a paralysis fell over his limbs. Then he stopped moving altogether. Only then did he realize that the Tall One, standing beside Reg like a docile house pet, was exerting a form of telepathic control over him. He opened his mouth to shout out a warning, but found he couldn’t speak. He tried to turn around, but his feet were rooted to the floor. Trapped inside his uncooperative body, he waited in the darkness for Reg or Fadeela to notice that something was wrong. Then a strange idea infiltrated his consciousness: The way to solve this problem is to kill myself. He looked down and realized he was still holding the knife. The blade slowly tilted upward. Tye, knowing what was about to happen, struggled desperately to regain control of his arm, but couldn’t. The knife jerked upward and stabbed into his left shoulder, where it lodged deep in the muscle and ligament. As if in a dream, he worked the blade free, then immediately plunged it into the softer tissue of his stomach. Although stupefied by what he was doing to himself, he felt no pain and was unable to make any sound. He pulled the knife free once more and prepared to stab into his heart when a shot rang out.

  Tye collapsed to the floor and howled in pain. The next thing he knew, Reg was kneeling beside him, checking his wounds. “Am I dead?” Tye asked.

  “No. But our little helper is. He made you do this, didn’t he?” Tye nodded. “Listen, they’re down there, right below us. And they’ve got the case.” He quickly explained what he’d seen through the floor, then lifted his head and looked at his wounds. “I’m not going to die or anything like that, am I?”

  “Wait here for the others,” Reg said, then turned and sprinted away just as Fadeela ran up to the spot.

  “Reg, wait,” she called. “Where are you going?”

  He didn’t answer. He tore into the dark hallway and flew down the trellis ladder. A few seconds later, he was running headlong through the darkness of the exit bay with his machine gun gripped tightly between his hands. He didn’t switch on his flashlight for fear of showing the aliens where he was. Instead, he took his best guess about where the taproot was and plunged blindly ahead. To his right, the first violet-blue light of morning showed the outline of the rectangular opening at the front of the tower. In a few minutes, there would be enough light to see where he was headed. But he didn’t have a few minutes to spare. He continued moving forward, all of his senses on alert, searching for the aliens Tye had seen. When he heard a noise in the distance, he stopped running and stood stock-still. Above the sound of his labored breathing and furiously pounding heart, he heard it again. It was the sound of the clasps being opened on the silver case. He aimed his machine gun at the sound, then switched on his flashlight.

  A pair of bulging silver eyes looked back at him from beside the taproot, only a few strides away. It was another Tall One, awkwardly manipulating the metallic suitcase that Reg had been chasing ever since he first saw it at Al-Sayyid. One of the three clasps was still fastened. He’d arrived just in time.

  “Back away, handsome,” Reg growled at the alien, trying hard to sound cool, composed, and in control, when the truth was that he was terrified. When the alien didn’t obey, Reg gathered himself and started moving forward, ready to blast through the alien’s scrawny chest if it made a sudden movement. There were two more Tall Ones standing nearby, but they seemed unconcerned with Reg’s presence. They turned their backs to him and resumed the tasks they’d been performing before he’d interrupted them. Although Reg didn’t look in their direction, he found that he knew precisely what they were doing: going ahead with the deployment of the biological weapons. They were breaking open the membrane that covered the fourteen slotted cartridges that would accommodate the test tubes.

  Just give me the box and I won't hurt any of you, Reg told them without a sound escaping his lips, hut he was also thinking, As soon as / have it I’ll kill all three of you. He edged forward until, face-to-face with the nearest Tall One, he extended a shaking hand and grabbed the handle of the silver case. When at last he had the thing safely in his grasp, a nervous smile crossed his lips. He breathed a huge sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his eyes with the sleeve of his uniform. Now that he was holding all the cards, he could relax. Three quick bullets, he thought, one for each of these ghouls, and then / can leave. But before he could finish the job. the machine gun began to feel heavy in his right hand, and he let it rest on his hip. Three quick shots, he told himself.

  Then again, he thought, there was no real need to kill them. The Tall Ones didn’t seem to be violent like the smaller aliens. They were, in fact, a rather admirable species. Reg began more and more to see the situation from their perspective and had soon developed second thoughts about taking the biological weapons away from them. After all, they were only doing what was necessary. Their invasion of the Earth was a matter of their own survival, not some random act of cruelty. Compared to humans, they were kinder, cleaner, better organized, more peaceful, and, ultimately, wiser. They were, in short, the far superior species and deserved to inherit the Earth, even if they planned to stay only a short while.

  It was a horrible idea, but it continued to unfold in his mind with an undeniable logic, like the blossoming of a sweet, poisonous flower. He suddenly saw humanity through the eyes of the aliens: a race of filthy and sadistic animals, the equivalent of cockroaches with guns. Suddenly, he regretted having killed the Tall One who had led him upstairs. The gentle creature had only been trying to help, keeping the humans out of the way while the final preparations were made to inject the microbes deep into the earth. Instead of being thankful, Reg had blown its brains out, murdered it execution-style.

  The hatred and contempt the Tall Ones felt for him awakened all of his own self-hatred and brought him crashing back to the event that had shattered his life several years before: his ill-fated bombing run during the Gulf War. He remembered walking into that postflight debriefing room feeling like he was the king of the world, then the next moment wanting to curl up and die when they told him what he’d done. The whole gruesome scene replayed itself as if it were happening again for the first time. He remembered standing in front of a television watching rescue workers pull the dead, the maimed, and the burned out of the rubble of the gymnasium his missile had destroyed, and he wanted nothing more than to end his own miserable life.

  He set the silver case on the floor and backed away, lost in the miasma of his guilt and self-loathing. Then he swung his machine gun over his shoulder and began to walk toward the opening at the end of the exit bay. Reg knew what he had to do: throw himself into the air and fly down to the desert floor.

  As these thoughts dominated his mind and controlled his actions, another part of Reg was kicking and screaming with the desperation of a drowning man. Trapped inside his own mind and disconnected from his body, he struggled to regain control and shake off the effects of the telepathic haze the Tall Ones had cast over him. But thrash and struggle as he might, he continued to march toward the precipice. In his anxiety, his mind flashed back to the question he’d asked himself after surviving that first catastrophic encounter with the alien attackers: Had he lived to fight again or only saved himself for a more horrible death later on?

  Now he knew. He was doomed as certainly as a man in a canoe speeding toward a waterfall without a paddle. And he told himself he’d been right all
along: The people of Earth were too divided among themselves to answer the challenge of the highly disciplined alien forces. They’d come close with their too crazy plan, they’d shot the city destroyers out of the air. But that was cold comfort for a man marching toward his own unwilling suicide. He thought again of what he’d told the pilots gathered around the radio tent in the desert: that the only sane thing was to try something crazy.

  In the sky beyond the exit-bay door, Reg heard a familiar sound: the screaming turbines of a jet as it dropped into a bombing run. He watched the plane rocket toward him out of the distance, hoping it would destroy the tower before the biological poisons could be released. But long before it came within firing range, it disintegrated in the green flash of a pulse burst.

  “Reg! Reg!” He heard Fadeela’s voice over his shoulder. Part of him wanted to turn around, if only to see her one last time before he died, but the other part thought she’d try to stop him from doing what needed to be done. He broke into a jog.

  DO SOMETHING! Reg screamed inwardly, but the nightmare continued to sweep him toward the opening. The southeastern horizon appealed before him like a pastel landscape painting, framed by the monumental rectangle of the exit bay. Only a few seconds before he would have stepped off the edge, he remembered how he’d tricked the alien behind the wall in the oasis, how he’d used his imagination to make Khalid, like a character in a dream, begin doing all sorts of improbable things: turning somersaults and flipping himself through the trees like a gymnast.

  DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING CRAZY! Instead of trying to resist his forward momentum, Reg willed himself to run even faster. To his surprise, it worked. Then he imagined himself skipping like a carefree schoolboy, and his body responded again. He pictured himself moving side to side, sliding his feet like an ice-skater. Soon his body responded, but he was still moving forward. He needed something crazier and needed it fast. So he did the first thing that came into his head: He danced. He broke into a very bad imitation of the dancing he knew from old musicals, a sliding athletic dance like Gene Kelly used to do. Even though his feet wanted to carry him straight ahead, he steered them into a sidestep shuffle. He was almost at the edge of the precipice. Keep dancing! he told himself. It took all his energy to maintain his concentration. He tried everything he could think of: spinning, leaping, tumbling, stomping his feet. Each of these strange gyrations worked for only a few seconds until the impulse to jump reasserted itself and carried him another step forward. Desperate to save himself, Reg started shucking and jiving, jitterbugging and hoofing, flailing around spastically, doing whatever odd movement came to mind. He kept it up until Fadeela’s voice broke the spell.