The Orbs Omnibus

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Quan departed the room and the rest of his staff followed him out in silence. Remaining at the table was Le, whose uniform looked like it was two sizes too small. His cropped hair stuck to his head like a helmet, and his dark brown eyes stared ahead, expressionless. To Alex, the man was more intimidating than Captain Quan.

  Folding his tablet under his arm, Captain Noble motioned for Le to follow him. Alex watched the entire NTC crew vanish from the room before trying to stand. His foot had fallen asleep, and the numb pain shot through his leg. He massaged his foot and stared at the hologram still hovering above the table. Saltwater cascaded into the sky. There was something mesmerizing about it.

  As the pain in his leg faded, he forced himself away from the image. Captain Noble wasn’t just wrong about fighting back. He was wrong about how much time the human race really had left.

  CHAPTER 22

  SCRATCH, scrape, scratch, scrape.

  Sophie froze, paralyzed by the familiar sound. She turned slowly and saw Jamie looking up at her mischievously from the adjacent table. The little girl giggled as she slid her fork across the metal table, right through a trail of splattered tomatoes.

  “Jamie, don’t play with your food,” Holly said.

  “Yeah, Jamie, don’t play with your food,” Owen mimicked as he stabbed one of his own tomatoes. The ripe vegetable exploded into a mess of red juice on his plate.

  Sophie took in a deep breath of the Biosphere’s filtered air and turned back to her tablet. Video of Overton’s trip streamed across the display. She watched in silence, trying to understand exactly what she was looking at. As a scientist, she was fascinated by the Organics’ biology, but as one of the few humans left in the fight against them, she found them horrifying. She watched the third wave of Spiders flank Overton’s team and paused the image. The idea was to gain a better understanding of how the aliens operated—how they fought.

  After six weeks of working with the sergeant to protect the Biosphere, she was beginning to think more like a marine. And since Jeff’s recent capture, she was becoming increasingly paranoid.

  Scratch, scrape . . .

  “Jamie, cut that out,” Sophie snapped, glaring at the child.

  “Sorry,” Jamie whimpered. The girl dropped the fork and picked at the mess in front of her.

  Sophie knew she had to keep it together; none of this was the children’s fault, and she had no right to take it out on them. They had been robbed of their childhood. Nothing was worse than that.

  “I’m sorry, Jamie,” Sophie said, getting up and making her way to the other table. She wrapped her arms around the girl in a hug. “I need to see Emanuel. I’ll check in on you guys later.”

  Sophie rushed out of the room, still embarrassed that she had upset the girl. It only took her a minute to navigate the hallways connecting the Biomes, and she found Emanuel hunched over the RVAMP in the medical ward. She remained silent, studying him curiously from the doorway. Under the bright LED lights, she could see several gray hairs mixed into his perfect side part. The stress was aging them all.

  He worked quietly, twisting a bolt off the metal device. Sophie preferred to listen to music in the lab, but Emanuel had always worked in silence. He claimed it was better that way—that music was just a distraction.

  With a small tug, Emanuel removed a side panel, revealing a tangled mess of colored wires.

  “What a mess,” he muttered. Reaching for a tool, he saw her standing in the doorway. A warm smile crept across his face. A tingle raced through Sophie. He still had it. His dimples always made her feel better.

  “Whatcha doin’?” she asked playfully.

  “I’m creating the weapon that’s going to save humanity,” he said.

  “What’s left of it, you mean,” she replied. Even with Alexia’s help, she had her doubts about the weapon’s effectiveness on a worldwide scale. They would need to produce an unfathomable amount of energy to create a pulse that could knock out the Organics on that level.

  Emanuel peered into the heart of the box. He yanked out a red wire, disconnecting it with a pop. The device let out a small whine, and the power meter on the side faded and died.

  “Are you going to actually let me help this time?” Sophie asked.

  “Yeah, sure. Take a seat.” He patted the stool next to him and plugged the red wire into a tiny slot in the mainframe.

  “Alexia, can you download the information on the magnetic disruption outside?”

  “Certainly, Doctor Rodriguez.”

  “I have a theory,” Emanuel said, scooting his chair closer to Sophie’s. “I think that the magnetic wavelength they used to disable our communications is much more sophisticated than a constant EMP-like pulse. I think . . .” he paused and pushed his glasses higher onto his nose. “I know that the wavelength powers their shields.”

  Sophie felt her stomach drop at the revelation. Not because she was concerned about what he’d found, but because she hadn’t helped. This was her team, and she’d been spending all her time in dreams or fighting with Overton. She felt useless.

  Emanuel’s face beamed with excitement, and Sophie’s resentment slipped away. At times like this, when he was fired up by a new discovery, Sophie thought Emanuel was the sexiest man she’d ever seen. He leaned forward to jiggle the wire, bringing his face closer to hers, and Sophie surprised them both by kissing him softly on the lips. A thrill moved through her like a jolt of electricity as he put his hand behind her head and pulled her closer, deepening their kiss.

  “Doctor Rodriguez, do you require any other data, or is this satisfactory?”

  Emanuel waved his hand at the camera as if to shoo Alexia away.

  Sophie couldn’t get enough of him. It had been too long since she’d felt his body next to hers. She pulled away for the briefest second to pull off her shirt, turning to make sure the door was closed.

  Then she let her ponytail down. A wave of blond hair tumbled over her naked shoulders and across her breasts. Emanuel stared at her, captivated. His eyes traveled down the length of her body. She craved the attention.

  Sophie wasn’t prepared for the aggressive way he grabbed her, but she liked it. It made her feel . . .

  Safe.

  The world may have ended outside, but sex was apparently just what they needed to remind themselves there was still something worth fighting for.

  They kissed passionately until Sophie bumped into one of the tables. Next thing she knew, she was pulling herself onto the metal surface and wrapping her legs around Emanuel, who was trying to unfasten his belt.

  “Come on, come on,” he said. Sophie reached down to help him. She laughed; two PhDs between them, and yet they were stymied by a simple belt. Finally it unclicked.

  Emanuel paused to look into Sophie’s eyes. “I love you,” he said.

  Until she met Emanuel, Sophie had never thought that love was something she wanted. She had chosen a demanding career, and she had been happy to devote herself to it. Then Emanuel had come into her life, and for the first time, she had wanted more than a Nobel Prize and tenure. She had wanted love.

  Sophie gently pulled off his glasses. She rested them on the table and then looked back into his brown eyes. “I love you, too.” She kissed him deeply and then growled, “Now come here!”

  * * *

  David stood in the middle of the mess hall looking at his brother for approval.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” Jeff asked.

  David nodded and smiled, “Yeah! Give it to me!”

  Jeff laughed and handed him his old rifle. Standing at David’s side, he helped his little brother look down the sight.

  “You’re not gripping it right,” Jeff said. “Hold it like this.”

  He grabbed the rifle from David, who frowned and looked down at his feet.

  “Are you watching me, bud?”

  “Ye
s. Here, give it back.”

  Jeff reluctantly handed his little brother the weapon, watching him carefully. He knew the kid could fire it; David had proven that while they were living under White Sands. But he wanted his brother to improve. To become a soldier, like he was becoming.

  “What are you guys doing?” a voice said from behind him.

  Jeff knew the voice; it was the man that had saved him in the lakebed.

  “I’m teaching my brother how to hold a weapon properly.”

  Kiel laughed. He had one of those contagious chuckles that made others laugh. Jeff found himself chuckling at the short marine. He was funny.

  “Looks to me like neither of you knows how to hold it. Give it here,” Kiel said.

  Jeff’s face suddenly turned red. Jeff and his brother were young, sure, but they had survived alone for weeks together. What had Kiel done besides get captured? David hesitated, and looked at Jeff for approval. Finally, Jeff nodded.

  Kiel grabbed the rifle and looked down the stock. “Where the hell did you get this old thing?”

  “It was our dad’s. My grandpa gave it to him, and he handed it down to me,” Jeff said.

  “And you actually killed those things with it?”

  Jeff stuck out his chin defiantly. “Yeah! A ton of Spiders, and I brought down a Sentinel with it, too.”

  “Not gonna lie, that’s pretty impressive. Is that how you guys survived out there for so long?”

  Jeff looked to David. “You want to tell him, little bro?”

  David shook his head. “No, you can.”

  “Well?” Kiel entreated. “Do you guys have some secret cloaking device besides Doctor Rodrigo’s machine?” He laughed and took a seat on one of the benches.

  Jeff didn’t think his newest joke was funny. He didn’t like Emanuel much, but the scientist was doing his best to protect the team.

  “His name is Dr. Emanuel Rodriguez, and no, we didn’t have a cloaking device,” Jeff said.

  Kiel frowned. “Sorry kid. I’m just messing with you. Seriously, though, I want to know about White Sands.” He crossed a leg and picked a piece of food out of his teeth, waiting for Jeff to answer.

  Taking in a short breath Jeff glanced over at David, who looked annoyed. “We were visiting the White Sands military installation where our dad worked. He did everything he could, but . . .” Jeff paused, and then clenched his jaw. “My dad died protecting us. He was killed by the Spiders and so were the NTC soldiers who were left behind. We stayed in the tunnels, where it was easier to hide. Emanuel said we survived because we were too small for the aliens to detect our water weight.”

  “Sorry about your dad,” Kiel said. “But what do you mean you were too small for the aliens to ‘detect’ you?” Kiel said, using his fingers to form quotation marks.

  Jeff shrugged. “Ask Emanuel. He’s the smart guy.”

  Rolling his eyes, Kiel handed the boy his rifle back. “Good job, kid. You have my respect.”

  The words hit Jeff like a gust of wind. He nodded as the man walked away. Maybe the guy wasn’t so bad after all—maybe Kiel could even teach them how to be tough like him.

  Jeff grinned at his brother. “You want to be a marine, bud?”

  “Yeah,” David said, smiling.

  * * *

  Holly and Bouma led Jamie and Owen through the garden biome, picking fresh fruit and vegetables as they navigated their way carefully through the fields. For three days straight, Holly had been babysitting the kids, and she was truly starting to tire of it. On the bright side, though, she finally got her walk with Bouma.

  Holly tried to think of some way to get the kids out of her hair for a few minutes. Finally, she motioned Jamie and Owen over. “See this?” she asked, holding up a strawberry.

  The two children nodded, their small heads bobbing up and down.

  “I want you guys to find as many of these as you can. The one who gets the most will win a prize.”

  “A prize?” Owen asked, his brown eyes growing curious.

  “Yes, a prize,” Holly replied. It was the same trick she’d used before, but she didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that kids could never resist a competition.

  “What kind of prize?” Jamie asked with her hands clasped behind her.

  “You’ll just have to see. Now go find as many strawberries as your baskets will hold!”

  Bouma laughed as the kids took off running. Their small footfalls gradually faded away, and Holly turned to the marine.

  “Alone at last,” she said.

  Bouma cracked a closed-mouth smile, self-conscious of his crooked teeth. “Finally,” he said.

  Holly took his hand in hers, knowing their time together was short. She felt the warmth of his skin, the surprising softness of it.

  “I was worried about you out there. After you guys didn’t come back right away, I thought something had gone wrong,” she said.

  Bouma didn’t reply at first. Finally he said, “Honestly, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it. Things are awful outside. . . .” He paused and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t want to go back. I will if Overton orders it, but if I had the choice, I wouldn’t leave the Biosphere ever again.”

  Dropping his hand, Holly wrapped her arms around his solid midsection. Bouma let out a tiny oompf before returning her embrace.

  She looked up at him. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” replied Bouma.

  “It’s about Sophie and Overton. I’m worried about them. Between Sophie’s dreams and the stress of her position, she seems to be losing her edge. And Overton appears to be experiencing the same thing.”

  Bouma loosened his grip on Holly. “Yeah . . . I’ve seen it, too. But it’s not my place to say anything. Unless Overton goes completely nuts, I really can’t do much. Besides, he’s a good man. Despite what you all probably think of him, he does care about you all, not just his own men.”

  “I know. When Sophie hired me, she knew I could help the team deal with stress. But frankly, this situation falls outside the scope of my training.” Holly bit her lip. “I mean, I know what I’m supposed to be doing, but how do you convince everyone that things are going to be okay when you believe that they won’t?”

  Bouma pulled her closer so their faces were only inches away from each other. “Holly . . .” Her eyes were downcast and he nudged her chin up with a finger. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. And I promise I’ll keep an eye on Overton. You have my word,” he said, inching even closer.

  Holly froze. She hadn’t been this close to a man in as long as she could remember. And when he leaned in to kiss her, she almost pulled away. The kiss started off at an awkward angle, but Holly tilted her head to make up for it. Too soon, a voice exploded from the rows of cornstalks.

  “Look how many I found!” Owen said.

  Holly and Bouma jumped apart, but it was too late. Owen had already seen them. “What are you guys doing?”

  Holly crouched down and looked in Owen’s basket. “Wow, you found a lot.” She looked up to see how many Jamie had collected, but the girl hadn’t returned. “Where’s Jamie?”

  Owen turned around, looking for his partner in crime. “I don’t know; she was right behind me.”

  The girl burst through the cornstalks not a second later, holding a basket full to the brim with bright red strawberries. She looked over at Owen’s basket and then back at her own. “Looks like I win!” she beamed, her cheeks the same color as the fruit. “What’s my prize?”

  Holly smiled. “You get to eat them.”

  Jamie frowned. “Hey! That’s not fair.”

  The smile on Holly’s face faded, and she reached down to touch Jamie on the cheek. “I know, and I’m sorry. But life isn’t fair, Jamie. What happened outside isn’t fair. And we need to appreciate what we have left—what is
given to us.”

  Bouma reached out for her hand again, and this time she didn’t let go.

  CHAPTER 23

  ALEX gripped the railing overlooking the cargo bay. Below, the Ghost of Atlantis was filled with three state-of-the-art helicopter gunships, a half dozen Humvees, and two dune buggies equipped with NTC’s latest hydrogen engines. Alex recognized the carbon-fiber tubing snaking out from under the belly of the small vehicles. They ran off a mixture of hydrogen and solar power, much like many of the modern cars and trucks. Before the invasion, he had wanted one of the hydro cars, but his bank account was too dry for the fantasy to go anywhere beyond window-shopping.

  “This way,” a young, balding NTC officer said, motioning the tour forward.

  Alex followed the rest of the group down a metal ladder leading into the cargo bay. He was surrounded by a handful of Chinese officers who had boarded the sub. The tour was a crash course in the GOA, but Alex knew that the Chinese probably had no idea what they were looking at. They’d been underwater for years, and the technology of the GOA made the X-9 look like an antique.

  As Alex looked around him, he was once again reminded that he was completely out of place. Captain Noble had insisted that he become familiar with the sub, as it was going to be his home for the indefinite future. The thought was difficult for Alex to accept. For the past few days, he had been thinking a lot about the outside. His friends, his family, everyone he had left behind. Frankly, he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to live in this new world. What was the point?

  The NTC tour guide distracted him from his thoughts as he explained the contents of the cargo bay.

  “That’s the Sea Serpent and her sisters, Snake Eyes and Eagle 2. They’re NTC’s latest weapons of mass destruction,” the bald man said, pointing to the helicopters. “When we surface, a ramp can be deployed to help move the aircraft into position so that the helicopters can leave the GOA while it is partially submerged.”