Alpha 9

by Rebecca Bosevski

  “Where are you taking me?” she questioned, not expecting a reply.

  “You are a Bravo; you will be taken immediately for testing.”

  “Testing?” she questioned as they led her towards a blue tube shimmering in light.

  “And what if I fail this test?”

  The Annoronian that shot Bravo Four stood in front of her.

  “Pray you pass,” he said, the same fear in his eyes. He took her left arm from the other Annoronian and along with the one on her right, led her into the blue tube, its light engulfing her.

  She rematerialised in a sector of what had to be an alien ship. Nothing in her memories displayed anything like it. She tried to take it all in but was forced down a long corridor, the floor lit by the same tubes she had seen running from the roof to the tents.

  “We are above them now?” Bravo questioned, looking at the one to her right. He gave no response, didn’t even look her way. She turned her head to look at the one on her other side. “We are, aren’t we? We are in your ship?”

  “Yes you are in our ship; you will be tested here,” he said, his voice holding not nearly as much harshness as it once had.

  “What are you testing me for?” she asked, dragging her feet. She wasn’t going to make it easy for them, they were carrying her weight with both her arms as she dangled between them up the corridor.

  “Fertility,” he said flatly as they rounded a corner and a large metal chair with various clasps sat in the center of the room. It too had glowing tubes running down from the roof, to the chair, and then into the floor.

  “No fricken way,” Bravo Two protested as she gained her footing and tried to push away. But they were stronger and another had joined them from behind and was quite effectively pushing her forwards into the chair of doom.

  “This is nuts, you can’t do this, you know humans can’t carry alien babies. Why are you doing this?” she screamed at them as they flung her into the chair, the clasps locking over her ankles, waist, chest and upper arms.

  The silent one stepped up and turned her wrists over to face upwards as the last of the clasps locked over her forearms tighter than the others.

  “Don’t struggle or it will hurt even more. It won’t take long,” the other one said, standing to the side. He pressed a few keys on a system and a buzz came from above her. With the restraint across her chest she struggled to look up. Her heart pounded against the strap as she strained to see what was happening.

  The buzz moved down with a robotic arm over her own. At the end of the arm a red dome glowed then retracted to show what had to be a hundred tiny needles.

  “You have to be kidding.” She struggled against her restraints.

  “I am afraid not,” he replied, pressed a big blue button and the needles all shot down into her arm. She tensed at the sting of pain and screamed as the searing heat entered her arm and shot up towards her shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” she screamed.

  “We told you. You are being tested. If you calm down it will not hurt…as much.”

  “Calm down, are you insane?! This thing hurts like hell,” Bravo Two spat back, gritting her teeth trying to hold back her scream. The pain continued to travel around her body and down her other arm.

  A crackle came out over the transmitter at their sides.

  “I have found it, what you have been looking for.”

  Bravo Two tried to focus on the transmission to alleviate the pain.

  “Are you sure?” came a familiar voice.

  “Yes. We didn’t even have to look for them, they found us, they will get us in.”

  It was working, training her focus on the almost inaudible voices left little room for her brain to register the pain.

  “We will intercept, thank you Your service will not be forgotten.”

  “It better not be.”

  The voices stopped, the pain grew with each second of silence. Then after what could have been an hour or ten minutes, it too stopped.

  When Bravo opened her eyes only two of her captors remained in the room.

  “What, my screaming was too much for you lot?” she quipped. But their faces locked on the monitor beside Bravo Two’s chair of pain. She strained her head to see the screen.

  Her chair buzzed and the clasps around her waist and chest unlocked. She tried to stand but her ankles were still held tight. She twisted to look at the screen. In bright green the single word glowed across the monitor.

  POSITIVE.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Alpha scanned the room, on the far side he saw the back of a woman, her blonde hair twisted in a tight rope design and yet still reached well below her back. When she turned Alpha Nine’s heart skipped a beat.

  “You’re a Bravo,” Alpha Nine said to the slightly older version of the woman he was desperate to save.

  “I am,” she said, taking a few steps before sitting in an old leather armchair by the wall. The group began to file in after Alpha Nine. There was no way they would all fit into the small space, especially with the newly awakened now a part of his team. “Please, take a seat.” She gestured for Alpha Nine to take the chair opposite her. “Armond, you can take the others to get refreshments, we will not be long.”

  “Armond?” Alpha Nine asked, looking back. The older Alpha nodded to Bea and turned on his heel.

  “This way,” he said, shoving his way through the collection of duplicates that had crammed into the corridor behind Alpha and his team. Alpha’s original party stayed, they took positions around the room and waited.

  “I assure you your team are quite safe here, as too are you,” she said, the words rolling off her tongue like music notes. Alpha Nine’s heart jumped again.

  “I assure you, I am not like the Doctor. I was one of the first.”

  “The first?” Alpha pressed.

  “An agent of Terminus. A member of project Swarm.”

  “So you want to stop the aliens? Can you help me get my team back?”

  “I might be able to, but you have to understand a lot has happened in the last three years. The world is mostly theirs.”

  “How?”

  “Some of our own turned, people like the Doctor. When the Annoronians found out they had a chance at survival here, they used their advanced weaponry to annihilate most of the human race. Those they didn’t kill were imprisoned for their tests.”

  “But there are survivors, a resistance. We can mount an attack, take back our team and drive them from Earth.”

  “Their weapons are too strong. Our best hope is that we find a way to fight the toxin that is preventing population growth.” Bea looked at him, her blue eyes glistening with the beginnings of a tear.

  “There is something different about you,” he said, squinting as he looked her up and down, before taking a seat opposite. “There is, isn’t there?”

  “How so?” she tested, leaning forwards on her chair, clasping her hands together.

  Alpha Nine looked at her, his pulse raced exactly as it had with Bravo Two, like he was connected to her, like he needed to protect her. That she was special.

  “I don’t know what it is exactly,” Alpha Nine replied, frowning as he tried to figure it out.

  Bea smiled and relaxed back into her chair.

  “What do you know about why we were made?” Bea asked him as she folded her arms across her chest.

  “We were made to join project Swarm, to fight the Aliens that were to come. We were to be Earth's mightiest weapon.”

  “But the aliens attacked us with something stronger.”

  “The toxin? How does it work?” Alpha asked.

  “Very good,” she said, twisting her fingers together in her lap. “Whatever plague has been set upon us has no cure, and there are but a few that are immune to its effects.”

  "And you want to find a cure?"

  "Yes."

  “Then here's my deal: we'll help find a cure after we get back Bravo Two and the rest of my team. Tell me where I can find the Doctor
.”

  “Wait…you have a Bravo Two?” she gasped, reaching over and grabbing Alpha Nine’s hands. The others stepped forwards ready to take her down if she tried to hurt him. “There was no more Bravo Two’s, I was the last--the only--or so I thought. What facility did you say you came from? Where is it?”

  “We are from the Opera House. And like I said, we did have one,” Alpha Nine said, pulling his hands free from her grasp. “Now where can I find her?”

  “I will tell you how to get to her if you tell me how to get into that facility?”

  “Why?” Alpha asked, not yet trusting this Bea.

  “If you have pure sample of a Bravo Two in your facility, and undesignated embryos, then you have the one thing that can save humanity. With a working lab, we can rebuild the human population, make more of us that can reproduce, find a cure for those that can’t. Humanity doesn’t have to die with us.”

  “So are you immune?”

  “Yes, but I do not produce the antibodies needed to create a cure. I need a pure sample. I need to get into that lab.”

  “I can go with her,” Ben said from the doorway. Alpha hadn’t noticed him still standing there, he assumed he had gone with Armond.

  The team nodded one by one as Alpha Nine looked from one to the next, finally landing his eyes on Bea.

  “Tell us where they are.”

  Bea smiled and Alpha’s stomach flipped. She told him how the Annoronians had secured one of the labs below Central Station. It wasn’t the same as his facility, they didn’t grow them there. It was smaller, and housed much of the raw DNA samples collected for the creation of the duplicates.

  Ben and the others were happy to go with Bea to the Opera House facility to secure the samples and collect the other duplicates. Bea had a direct tunnel that would lead them almost directly in front of the Opera House. Her plan to get Alpha Nine to the facility under Central Station was not as simple.

  “You must go above ground for most of it,” she said, tracing her finger along an old map she pulled from a wall of rolled documents. “The Annoronians destroyed most of the train lines after the war, collapsed them completely. If you can get to Museum Station you can then go underground to get to Central. Follow it this way,” she said, drawing her finger further up what was called Elizabeth Street and over to the words Central.

  “But how do we find the lab?” Alpha asked.

  “The Annoronians have taken over all of Central Station, one of their ships sits on top of the main building feeding power to the labs they have set up inside. The Station is where they will have your Bravo Two, and you better hurry; hopefully they haven’t tested her yet. If they have and they find out she can reproduce, you can be sure she will be sent for impregnation immediately, and there is no coming back from that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Annoronian foetus will kill her, she can’t survive the birth. No woman has.” She dropped her head and stared at the map in front of them.

  “There have been others?”

  “Some. Less with each passing year. But they still take them. They are still searching for the few that are immune. Trying to find the perfect host.”

  “They can’t reproduce either?”

  “Not here. Their weapon must have mutated, affected them too.”

  “Then we're running out of time."” Alpha slapped his hand down onto the map in front of him.

  She raised her head a little to smile at him, his pulse quickened. Taking out a pen she marked the path Alpha Nine and his team would need to take then handed him the map.

  “Come, I will show you where you can go up top.” Bea and Alpha continued their chat on their way to his exit. Bea looked younger in the dulled light of the tunnels, something that made his stomach flip again when she smiled.

  “Remember the park has traps,” she said as they neared the ladder that would lead Alpha up top.

  “You can’t let them go,” Armond said, storming towards them. “They get caught and the Annoronians will find this place too. The females are lost.” He came to stand before Alpha Nine, poking him in the chest with one finger. “You should have stayed in your lab; they will surely have taken it over by now, too.”

  “Stand down Armond. You do not know that they would breach the lab, there are defences in place. They wouldn’t dare blast a hole to get in, it could damage the facility inside.”

  Did I tell her about the defences we put up? Alpha wondered to himself.

  “They should still stay here; they will test those females and when they find out that they are defective duplicates they will turn them into Drones like all the others.”

  Alpha Nine and Bea traded glances, he then shoved Armond back with one hand and took hold of the rusted metal ladder that led up a tall round tunnel.

  “You do what you like, but I am going after my team. I will bring them back along with any others I find.”

  “We find,” Kilo corrected as he barged past Armond to stand beside Alpha Nine.

  “They will kill you all, you weren’t here for the war, you don’t know what you are up against.”

  Alpha Nine took a few steps up the ladder, it creaked under his weight but held steady.

  “Maybe if we were here, the result would have been different.”

  Armond’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed. “How dare you.”

  “Enough!” Bea yelled, her voice echoing around them. “Armond, go, ready the team that will secure the lab. Alpha Nine, you have your map, once you get to the subway, you can take the train tunnels to Central. They caved in the rest but that one provides a main power link, damaging it would cripple the facility.”

  Alpha’s eyebrows rose at the thought of destroying the facility they held Bravo Two within.

  “Don’t,” Bea said. “You can’t destroy the power to the lab before you release them, if you do, anyone connected to their systems will die. Infiltrate, then free them from the holding pens. If they have them in the implantation module on the main platform, then they are lost. Pull the plug then haul ass back here and regroup with us.”

  “We won’t leave them,” he replied, not meeting her eyes, but he sensed her stare.

  “Believe me, if they have them in that module, they would ask for death. Attempting to birth a hybrid is not pretty or painless.”

  “Understood,” Alpha said, powering up the ladder. His team followed him up, all of them willing to take on whatever alien they came across to rescue their female teammates.

  Alpha didn’t like leaving the main collection of the awakened duplicates to Bea, but if she was as determined to retrieve the Bravo Two sample as she made out, they would at least stand a chance of getting in and out safely.

  Alpha Nine reached the top, pushed against the grate, and a soft orange light shone through. He watched a street light to the far-right flicker a few times, illuminating the front of the alleyway he would enter.

  “Take it slow, I will go up first, then you follow one by one. If at any time we come under attack, retreat and find another way to Central.” They all nodded compliance, their faces partially illuminated by the light he was letting in. Not one of them showed any signs of doubt, or fear. They were ready, and so was he. “Let’s go.”

  Alpha Nine pushed the grate up further and pushed his upper body out, sliding forwards on his stomach he let the grate rest on his back. Once he was half out, the weight of it lifted as Kilo pushed it up a little more from below him.

  Alpha slid the rest of the way out in a moment and then took hold of the grate so that Kilo could follow.

  “Check our position,” Alpha whispered the second Kilo was free.

  “Copy,” he replied, then quickly scanned their surroundings.

  Alpha looked around too. The alleyway was poorly lit, the single street light at the end only illuminated a few feet in. The back of the alley was near pitch black. It will be several hours till the sun would be up, giving them an ample amount of cover.

  “Are we clear for entr
y?” Alpha whispered.

  Kilo didn’t answer. He was tip-toeing slowly towards the rear of the alley, one arm raised, his knife in hand.

  “Kilo, report,” Alpha whispered to him over his shoulder while still holding the grate up for the others to climb out. Kilo was out of sight, lost in the darkness of the back of the alleyway. “Are we secure, do we have a go for entry?”

  There was a clamour and Alpha dropped the grate, thankfully one of the teammates below caught it before it slammed on them. After ascertaining they were okay, he headed towards Kilo at the end of the alley.

  Kilo stepped out of the darkness, his knife sheathed, staring at his hands held out in front of him.

  “What happened?” Alpha asked, hovering one hand over his own knife.

  When Kilo took another few steps Alpha made out the blood slick on his palms. He dashed past Kilo to the back of the alley, his heart pounding in his ears. When he cleared the trash cans, his eyes adjusted and he saw it.

  A large tabby cat lay gutted by the rear wall. Kilo’s bloodied handprint painted beside it on the cement. Alpha’s heart slowed to a proper speed and he turned to Kilo.

  “I didn’t know it was a cat,” Kilo said, staring at his hands. “After the phases and then the aliens, I simply reacted.”

  “And if it was an alien, or a beast, you would have saved the team and secured our entry,” Alpha Nine said, picking up a rag from the ground and handing it to Kilo. “The creature could have given away our position, wipe your hands and help the others up.”

  “Copy,” Kilo said, taking the rag from Alpha and heading to the grate. Alpha looked around the alley, its floor littered with scraps of cloth and paper. Remnants of the once overflowing population. The voice he heard his whole growth entered his mind.

  ‘They came asking for our help. The collective governments can prevent a war if the development of technology to repopulate their kind is successful. If they fail and we can’t help to save their race, they will fight to enslave ours, and force our females into reproductive laboratories.

  You are a part of that technology’s development. You will be stronger, better, and when you awake, you will be prepared for the war that might come, but that we hope will never befall us.’