“Oh, so you’re a good alien?” Alvarez replied, with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Good or bad are irrelevant concepts, based on perspective. I’m simply talking about logic. The current approach is not sustainable. There is no reason that we can’t integrate with the planets we expand to, learn to live among the people, maybe even make our presence known and work together co-operatively to help each other thrive. Why harvest the populace as cattle when you already have your own livestock to live on? We could even begin to change our carnivorous diet to include vegetation, and instead of leaving barren land stripped of life we could leave behind lush gardens that nourish all of the planet’s inhabitants.”
“So you’re a vegetarian body snatcher?” Earl huffed.
“No, I am not,” replied Kiebler’s possessed secretary. “But this host body was a Vegan, and she was able to obtain all the nutrients needed with her diet to grow a vibrant and healthy body. I quite like having this body and I’d rather continue to enjoy it and stay here on Earth to live out my days than sacrifice it to support a system that I no longer believe works efficiently.”
“So you’re an alien rebel just helping out us human cattle?” I replied sceptically.
“Hauser said they killed one of those things before and it told them that the hive mind could see and hear everything it did!” Alvarez shot up, excited at the realization and pointing his weapon at the lithe redhead again. “You’re just showing them exactly where to find us!”
“No!” she yelled. “Look, this is why they can’t see what I see. I’ve cut myself off from the hive mind.” As she spoke, Lacy pulled a flat metal square from under her shirt incredibly quickly. She held it aloft in one hand. She held her other hand up, fingers spread, to show that she was unarmed. The rest of her body flinched and hunched in on itself, a feeble attempt at protecting herself from the gunfire she expected.
Luck for her Alvarez hesitated instead of opening fire, but I could tell by the look on his face that he was still considering it. With the tone of her voice, and the sudden change in her posture, I couldn’t help but think that there was still more of Lucy alive in there than the creature had led us to believe.
“What are you talking about?” I barked.
“It’s a frequency jammer,” she said, holding it out for inspection with both hands.
I gingerly took the rudimentary device from her hands, looking it over. It seemed too basic and simplistic at first, like something a kid would make in grade school art class.
It was just a shiny metal plate. I’m pretty sure it was a mounting plate for a large, industrial electrical outlet. It looked like it had been bent to follow the curve of a human body, making it fit under a shirt better. Several layers of thin copper wiring were wrapped around the edge of the plate. One thin wire ran from the plate to Lacy’s belt. My eyes traced the wire to where it disappeared. We looked at each other, and then she lifted her shirt to show me what was on the other end of the wire. The belt had several makeshift components and what looked like a small battery pack attached to it. The pieces looked like they had been scavenged from a cell phone.
“It works on a cell phone battery,.” she confirmed. “It blocks the frequency that keeps me attached to the hive mind. The only time I turn it off is when I’m far away from here and I want a quick glimpse into what they are planning.”
“You’re turning it off?” Earl retorted. “Fat lot of good it does to cut off the signal when you turn it back on every once in a while. You probably are just spying for them and givin’ them periodical updates! They’re gonna find my house!”
Earl nearly leapt out at the svelte young woman, like he would wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze.
“No!” she said again, now redirecting her defensive posture towards Earl. “I clear my mind of all of that info before I reconnect. I have never compromised this location.”
“So you just clear your head and your big bad alien overlords never learn a thing about me and my house?” asked Earl sarcastically.
“I think so,” she responded, with some honest hesitation.
“You think so?!” Earl spat back, getting worked up again.
“Wait! You don’t understand,” Lacy stammered nervously. “You’re missing the point. This thing cuts off converted host drones from the hive, but it can also prevent the radio sound frequency used by the Tenachai from activating the drone seeds in the fist place.”
The humans in the room looked around at each other for a few seconds.
“I can show you how to make these so that they can’t convert any human wearing one of these, as long as they keep their battery charged.”
Then Lacy’s face turned to me with a sly grin and spoke.
“But then again, you knew all of this already, didn’t you?”
“What?” I said, confused.
“You bear the mark of our people…” she replied.
“I was going to ask what you meant by that earlier,” I responded honestly.
“Come on, you don’t have to hide it now. I’ve told them all there is, you didn’t stop me and you seem to be helping them, so you must be another drone dissident,” she said with exasperation.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said. The others, even Alvarez, began to look at me sideways.
Lacy, or Kexa-183 or whatever her name was, quickly stepped forward before I could raise a weapon. She got too close a firearm to be useful, and her hands swiftly jutted out and gripped my skull. She pulled in close enough to kiss; we could taste each other’s breath. Her eyes flicked, frantically searching inside of mine. As they did, she spoke.
“One of the things that happens when a drone is activated is that the seed releases an enzyme that travels up the spine into the nervous system and lodges in the optic cortex. The enzyme is only visible by those who also have it--other Tenachai drones. It makes the eyes appear to be black to other drones. That’s how we can tell which hosts have been activated and which haven’t. I’m sure that your friend sees my eyes as black because that’s how I see his. The only way that is possible is if his body is full of Tenachai enzymes.”
The group began to look around at each other in horror, and look at me like a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
I began to sweat. Nervously stammering, I defended myself as I laid down my gun and began fumbling at my clothes.
“No, no, there’s no way! Look, I had one of those things in me, but I had it removed, it was taken out of me! Look!”
I desperately exposed my bleeding stitches to the group, hoping that the obvious visual confirmation would be all that was needed to convince the suspicious mob forming in my mind.
Lacy looked at the wound curiously and poked at it.
“Hmm…” she muttered. He stood up and looked at me again.
“What happened?”
I relayed my story, from the death of my father, to waking up in the hospital, and finally my escape with Kiebler to Albright’s Surplus store.
“It’s amazing,” said Lacy. “I never would have thought it possible. That black ooze that travelled into you through the cord before you cut it off. That must have been when the enzyme was triggered.”
“Great. So I’ve got alien umbilical cord fluid inside of me?” I said, disgusted.
“No, no, this is good. The enzyme isn’t just how we tell each other from the humans,” Kexa said, the most excited I’d seen her yet. “It secretes through our pores and it reinforces our muscle tissues. It’s how the Tenachai weapons recognize the proper users.”
“Ok…” I said, confused.
“You’re going to be able to use any weapon in the Tenachai arsenal against them. And over time your muscles will become stronger and more resilient. Your brain tissue will work more efficiently,” she said.
“Does this mean they can see through me like they can you?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“No, it shouldn’t. With the drone disconnected there is no return broadcast, but your b
rain may become more sensitive to the frequencies used by the Tenachai. You may be able to sense when they are near!” she said.
“What should we do now?” asked Alvarez.
“Your plan is right, finding survivors and gathering them in a stronghold like the hospital you described is the best course of action. We can hide there safely and organize a resistance. We should take this group back now though. The memorial Coliseum is a decoy,” said Lacy.
“What do you mean?” asked Alvarez.
“Look in the sky, there are imperial ships floating around everywhere. I guarantee there is one over the Coliseum now. The gathering of survivors was misinformation that was intentionally released to draw more survivors in. Last time I reconnected to the hive, I was able to learn their plans. All the survivors there are going to be activated as hosts en masse, to help bolster the harvest efforts and feed the armies arriving. The other Soldier classes are here now, coming in the ships. What’s happened so far is just the preparation phase; things are going to get a whole lot worse.”
“Can’t we run or just take our weapons and fight?” asked Earl, temper firing up again
“That would be hard.” Lacy replied matter-of-factly. “The Gammas have weaponized radio emitter rifles. Wherever they go, when they open fire, anyone in range is converted to their side. The populace is still needed for food for the empire. Instead of killing hosts before they can be eaten, they convert the populace as they march forward, increasing the size of the army and the harvest simultaneously. The best defense is to gather a resistance and build more jammers before we mount an offensive.”
Earl finally seemed to understand what he was hearing, and wilted.
I looked around at the group.
“Everyone got a cell phone?” I asked.
Chapter 13 – The Tenachai Are Coming
That’s about when Bill chimed in.
“Why should we believe any of this? How do we know Memorial Coliseum isn’t exactly the safest place to go and these two aren’t just trying to lead us into a trap?”
“Wait a minute,” said Earl. “This girl has been helping us, keeping those things outta the house. I say alien or not, she’s on our side and we should follow her info.”
“I’m not going to risk the lives of me and my baby on the word of an alien that wants to eat us!” yelled Unus, sheltering Wendy under in her arms. “We’re going to the Memorial Coliseum.”
Suddenly the house shook. An explosion rocked the neighbourhood. It sounded like a neighbour’s houses exploding. I looked at the group.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “If you don’t want to come with us, don’t but we’ve all got to get out of here now. We’re going back to the hospital; you go whichever way you want.”
Within minutes we left, loaded up with as much of the food from Earl’s pantry that we could pack. The street was quiet and there didn’t seem to be any activity or any soldiers on the street. Bill, Unus and Wendy stuck with us for a few blocks, since the street leading to Memorial Coliseum was on the way to the hospital. The group leapfrogged from building to building like Alvarez and I had earlier, with each of us taking turns on point, scouting from house to house because we were armed with the best weapons.
When we got to the intersection where we had to part ways, Bill turned at looked at us, Unus and Wendy standing behind him.
“We’re going this way,.” he said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I need a gun. I don’t want anything from you, alien,” he spat at me, before turning his gaze to Alvarez. “Can you please give me one of your guns?”
Alvarez handed him a 9mm handgun from his belt. Bill turned and walked away. As we watched part of our group of survivors cross the street, walking away from us, the wall of house exploded, showering us all in bits of brick and obscuring our view them in a cloud of brick dust.
Before we could get our bearings, the street was filled with several classes of Tenachai soldiers, and we were under fire from energy weapons from all directions.
Chapter 14 – The Beginning of the End
Buildings crumbled as a platoon of Tenachai soldiers -- REAL Tenachai soldiers, not host drones -- levelled everything in its path. The group marched in a column twice as wide as the street, oblivious to the strict and orderly confines implied by the asphalt borders. Homes, gardens, picket fences . . . they all folded like paper as the heavily armed aliens advanced, heralded by a cacophony of weapons fire. Dirt and brick and dust and concrete rained down in small fragments, pelting my face, while plumes of white dust and grey smoke floated in the air.
A large tank-like vehicle rolled down the middle of the street, the alien metal reflecting the sun like polished silver. It was flanked on either side by foot soldiers armed with energy rifles, firing indiscriminately at everything, both animate and inanimate. Atop the shining war machine was what must have been a Gamma class Tenachai. Lacy’s description hadn’t done it justice. It was a huge, wrinkly, yellow, worm-like creature. The huge head and torso with tiny arms and legs would have seemed comical in a less dire situation. It could have been Jabba the Hut’s cousin.
The Gamma warmonger scowled, staring ahead with huge green eyeballs that blinked with wrinkled leathery lids so thin that they were almost transparent. Its mouth was a large open circle rimmed with razor sharp teeth like a great white shark. Its throat muscles convulsed inside its maw, uttering loud groans either meant as commands or just to intimidate the human ants fleeing for cover ahead of his death squad. A large sonic cannon stood next to the tank, looking just as I had imagined it from Lacy’s description. One blast from that and some of our comrades would become our enemies.
Alvarez was already returning fire while the rest of us tried to find protection from the advancing war machine. Earl, Lacy, Braden, and I huddled for cover under some nearby shrubs. Alvarez released another volley of gunfire before tucking into a military roll toward the rest of our group in our futile green sanctuary.
That’s when the air was split with a scream. Wendy was standing in the middle of the street, dirty and confused, and separated from her mother by the chaos.
Alvarez and I looked at each other in instant understanding. He pulled a gun from his belt and handed it to Earl. I pulled a Glock from one of my weapons pouches and handed it to Braden. I pulled a Beretta from one of my shoulder holsters and looked into Lacy’s dark eyes. I didn’t know if I really, REALLY, trusted her, but I didn’t have time to debate it with myself now. I would have to take the risk. I reluctantly placed the deadly weapon in her hands. She accepted the weapon in a reassuringly somber way, before exchanging looks with the entire group.
We moved into the street in unison. A squad with a sample mission -- create cover fire long enough to save Wendy, if nothing else. We opened fire on the mob of armoured aliens as their weapons continued to disintegrate the world around us.
As if to crush our foolish glimmer of hope, a platoon of fifty host drone soldiers poured into the battle zone from the side streets, increasing the flanks around the gamma.
The house next to us exploded, and the entire exterior wall collapsed toward us. Alvarez and Earl disappeared in a pile of brick rubble and a cloud of mortar dust.
I felt the bitter realization of defeat in the pit of my gut. All seemed to be lost.
And then I saw Braden. He was out of ammo, face to face with an angry host soldier. The young man fought with the spirit of a demon. He smashed in the face of the soldier in front of him with a loose brick and ran toward Wendy. He scooped her up, wrapping his arms around her, and ran for dear life toward the patch of brush nearby. The same one that Alvarez and I had used for cover on the way here.
Lacy and I released a volley of gunfire with renewed vigor. We managed to take out several more drones and foot soldiers.
An energy rifle once held by a deceased foot soldier lay in the middle of the street, ignored by both the Tenachai soldiers and the Gamma who commanded them. The tank moved forward, rol
ling on until the weapon lay directly in its path. The sonic cannon began to glow with a charge, and the Gamma excitedly prepared to turn its enemies into allies.
Through the fog of smoke and dust, a lone combatant strode forward, kneeling and wrapping his hand around the gun. With mild interest the Gamma looked down at the combatant with no concern. He recognized the dark black eyes of a host soldier-- one of his minions.
The hand was my hand. The rifle began to hum with a charge; I levelled it toward the behemoth bearing down on me.
I guess those few moments in the operating room with that Tenachai parasite’s blood mixing with mine mutated me enough to pass for one of their own. Stupid toads!
Seconds later the back of the alien monster’s head exploded, spraying a fine read mist and chunks of flesh over the combatants in the street.
EnEmE: Fall Of Man Page 8
