Mother Ship Page 10

  Max knew what it was, but in the dark, maybe Chambers hadn’t caught on. Either way, when Jimmy’s lighter flared, the agent snapped at him.

  “Wanna be a bit more discreet about that?”

  Jimmy coughed. “Sorry,” he said in a croak. Next time, he leaned over the pipe before hitting it, which might have hidden it from someone standing directly behind him.

  “Know what? Give me that.” Too fast for Jimmy to react, Chambers snatched the lighter from his hand and flicked it into the woods.

  “Hey! That was my only lighter, asshole.”

  “Scrounge for it in the morning.”

  Jimmy fell into a sullen silence, then, and Max slid to the forest floor, to lean back against his log. He gave what stars he could see through the forest ceiling an amused smile. Hanging out in the middle of the woods with his high school principal and his best friend was kind of surreal.

  Ten minutes passed in silence before Chambers spoke up again. “We’re low on supplies.”

  “Yeah, especially since you tossed my lighter.”

  The agent ignored Jimmy. “We’ll have to stop somewhere soon to resupply.”

  Max sat up again. “Not any of the townships. Too much chance of rioters, there.”

  “Rioters?” Chambers said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Just seems like an odd term. We aren’t facing riots, Max.”

  “I’m not sure what else to call them.”

  Jimmy shifted atop the stone he’d chosen as his seat. “We have a perfectly good word for them, from decades of movies. They’re zombies.” One of the horses whickered, and Jimmy shushed it.

  Max shook his head. “I don’t like it. ‘Zombie’ suggests they’re dead, and that they’ll never come back. I want to believe they will.”

  “What does what you want have to do with it?”

  Max frowned, and said nothing. His friend still sounded resentful.

  After a period of silence, Chambers started speaking again. “The GDA anticipated most of what’s happening. We’ve had decades to study the nature of the aliens’ connection with each human brain, and we came up with a taxonomy to describe what groups people would fall into, if that connection were ever used to bring down our society. From what I’ve seen so far, the taxonomy’s holding up.”

  Jimmy was shaking his head. “Why would we need a taxonomy? From what I’ve seen, they’re all equally crazy.”

  “You won’t know this, but anyone whose job it was to maintain critical infrastructure is still at that job, but as a mindless worker. Power plants, chemical plants—they’re all still fully operational. We call the ones keeping them that way Drones.”

  Max nodded. “What about the ones overrunning Oklahoma City?”

  “Berserkers. They’ll attack anyone and anything that comes near them, without rhyme or reason. Including each other.”

  “Are there other types?’

  “Just one, that we anticipated. I haven’t seen any evidence of this type yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t coming. We call them Ravagers. The ones we expect will attack in coordinated waves, probably at the aliens’ direction.”

  Chambers fell silent once more, and neither Max nor Jimmy broke that silence. It seemed heavier, this time.

  “How are you feeling, son?” Chambers said at last. He was turned toward Jimmy, and his tone was gentler than before. “Mentally.”

  “Fine.”

  “What about you?” Max asked the agent.

  He took a moment to answer. “Well, I have enough amygdala-suppressing drugs to last maybe two weeks. After that, your guess is as good as mine. I’d like to think I’m one of those few with at least some natural immunity to the aliens’ influence, but that’s impossible to predict. And statistically, it isn’t very likely.”

  “How does the immunity work, anyway? I’d think that if the aliens had laced everyone’s brain with nanobots, we’d be done for. They’d just have complete control of us.” Max glanced at Jimmy, expecting him to take a keen interest in this subject, but he wasn’t sure he was even listening.

  “Mostly, that’s right. But not completely. The aliens’ smart dust only appears to give them control of our autonomic nervous systems. That’s enough to control most people. But those people with the rare ability to resist their own body’s automatic responses—to stop and consider whether they actually want to do something their body is insisting they do—well, they’re able to hold on to at least some of their freedom. Obviously, different people can resist to varying degrees, and no one is totally free from the aliens’ influence.” Chambers leaned forward slightly from the tree he sat against. “Except, we hope, you.”

  “I think being high keeps them out of my brain,” Jimmy said.

  Max and Chambers both turned toward him. “Yeah?” the agent said.

  “I’m serious.”

  “That’s, uh…that’s great, then.

  No one spoke, after that—not even Jimmy, who Max would have expected to be chomping at the bit to talk about aliens. Was he upset about Chambers tossing his lighter? Or was something else going on?

  Possibly, he was checking out altogether. Max couldn’t blame him, even though he would do everything he could to keep his friend fully with him. Jimmy had lost his father this week.

  Then again, in a sense, Max had lost both his parents. Or rather, he’d discovered he had none.

  What Chambers had said about the neural smart dust made sense. It explained Jimmy’s low-level aggression since the ships had appeared. And the fact that resisting alien influence seemed to be about willpower—well, that explained the series of tests his parents had subjected him to over the years. Starting with the cookie test when he was four, and probably others even earlier.

  Their conversation had dried up for the night, it seemed. After a while, Max stretched out next to his log and drifted off.

  He dreamed of a beautiful woman with amber hair and emerald eyes. The dream seemed to last for years, and though it followed the sort of twisted logic dreams often do, it felt incredibly real.

  The world had ended in the dream, too. Even so, they managed to fall in love with each other. And somehow, they were happy. They lived in the woods, in a ramshackle shelter they built themselves, which was too small for anything other than lying in each other’s arms.

  Others lived with them, far from cities and towns, which had been long overrun. Life was hard. The alien ships still clogged the sky, and most days were spent hungry. No one had a plan for when the winter came.

  But Max and his love had each other. Somehow, they were happy.

  Until the day she told Max she was pregnant.

  Then, the dream became a nightmare. He sat in their shelter with his face in his hands, willing her to take back the words—wishing for them not to be true. How could they bring a child into this tortured world? What was left for it to inherit?

  Nothing. Nothing but a short life filled with pain.

  Max woke, breathing hard, a tight knot of guilt in the pit of his stomach.

  It took at least a minute for the dream to fully dissipate. And as he stared up at the stars, he realized that the woman from his dream spoke with the same voice he’d been hearing in his head since the day the ships came.

  Once his eyes readjusted to the dark, he saw that Chambers still sat against his tree. He nodded when Max’s eyes fell on him. Max said nothing, and soon he was asleep again.

  At dawn, Chambers gave Jimmy ten minutes to look for the lighter. He nearly didn’t find it. The agent was approaching to haul him bodily from the brush when his fingers chanced upon it, and all was well.

  A half hour of riding took them out of the woods and onto a succession of undeveloped fields. With no sign of their pursuers, they took the terrain at no more than a trot. Traveling any faster over the uneven ground was too risky. If one of their horses broke a leg, there was no guarantee they’d find a new one before those hunting them showed up.

  “You said the governme
nt has some advanced fighter jets in Colorado.” Max guided Yago around a cluster of boulders, then finished his thought. “And you said I’m the only one who’s able to lead the squadron.”

  Jimmy muttered something Max couldn’t make out.

  Chambers glanced at Jimmy before speaking. Maybe he was hesitant to discuss a top-secret project in front of him, but then again, he’d already done plenty to go against his organization. “That’s right,” he said at last.

  “Then it’s awful convenient I took an interest in joining the Air Force, isn’t it?”

  “It would have been more convenient if you’d had a few more years to complete your training.”

  Max’s lips tightened. “You know what I’m asking. And you’re dodging the question.”

  Chambers’ shoulders fell, as though he was sighing. If so, Max couldn’t hear it over the breeze and the soft patter of the horses’ hooves on the grass. “There’s no denying we compiled a detailed psychological profile on you. And yes, Max. We used that knowledge. Your parents carefully inculcated a passion for space, which provided the carrot to lure you into the Air Force. And I sparked your interest in the military, with our conversations about responsibility, security, and order.”

  Max shook his head, eyes wide as he studied the ground in front of Yago. How masterfully they manipulated me.

  How did he know he wasn’t being manipulated right now? What would being truly free from their influence look like?

  “You said the organization you work for is the GDA, right? What does that stand for?”

  “Global Defense Agency.”

  “Global. Were other countries involved?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? It might have given us a better shot.”

  “Because the more people that knew about our organization, the more we’d risk the aliens learning about it.”

  Max tilted his head back as he studied Chambers, then returned his attention to steering his horse. “If they have nanobots in everyone’s heads, I can’t see how they wouldn’t know either way.”

  Chambers shrugged. “There have been plenty of theories. Clearly, the aliens have a large fleet here now, but whoever or whatever was responsible for overseeing Earth before they got here, it’s likely they had limited bandwidth. They couldn’t watch everyone all the time. We think it’s more likely their dust is programmed to flag certain behavioral patterns, and something—the drugs we developed shortly after discovering that crashed ship, maybe—allowed the GDA to slip through the cracks.”

  “Or they’ve known about you all along, and consider you so harmless that they haven’t bothered dealing with you yet.”

  Chambers frowned. “Hopefully not.”

  Jimmy finally seemed to take an interest in their conversation. “Crashed ship?”

  “Uh…yeah.”

  “Roswell?”

  “Yes.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Knew it.”

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully, with no sign of the agents chasing them. That was promising. Maybe they really had managed to shake them.

  That night, they made camp in the middle of a stand of pine. They’d passed a barn twenty minutes back, which would have offered stalls for the horses and a hayloft for the humans.

  Chambers wouldn’t hear of it. “Too obvious,” he’d grunted when Jimmy had made the suggestion of bedding down there for the night.

  So they made their beds on twigs and pine needles, and Max dreamed of the woman again.

  That dream was interrupted by another. In it, a bright blue spotlight lit the woods where he lay from above. The light was so bright it might as well have been daytime. The beam made his skin tingle.

  All the while, an echoing voice called his name. The woman’s voice. The voice of his love.

  And with that, he was lifted.

  18

  5 days to extinction

  A crack of light appeared at the back of the truck, widening into a beam that hurt Cynthia’s eyes and made her wince.

  Janet climbed in and took her usual seat on the wheel well.

  “How is Peter?” Cynthia asked, her voice small.

  “Oh, he’s a defenseless little puppy without you. It’s quite pathetic.”

  “When will I be let out of here?” Her voice was picking up strength, fueled by anger. “I gave you what you wanted. These conditions are inhuman, Janet.” Even lidded, the plastic gardening bucket they’d given her as a toilet emanated a foul smell.

  Janet seemed to consider this. “You haven’t given me everything. But I agree with you. It does smell inhuman in here.”

  Shame tactics. Wonderful. “What do you want?”

  “You’re our best resource on the asset. Better than your husband—much better, actually. I’d rather not waste good men’s lives on sending them into the city to retrieve your files. It would be much safer if you’d open up and help me anticipate the asset’s psychology. No one knows him like you do.”

  For the first time in days, Cynthia smiled. “I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree. It isn’t about Max’s psychology anymore. It’s about whether he’s smart enough to listen to Ted. I think he is. Which means it comes down to Ted’s ability to evade you. And we both know he’s a better agent than you’ll ever be.”

  The vile woman’s hand twitched on her lap, and Cynthia chuckled. “Go on, Janet. Strike me, why don’t you? You know I’m right—that I can’t help you. At this point, there’s no purpose in harming me. So why don’t you prove to us both that you hurt people for the sake of it, and then dress it up in righteousness afterward?”

  They locked eyes for a long moment. Then, Janet rose from the wheel well and made for the exit without another word.

  “Max is headed to Colorado.”

  The agent stopped, crouched, and looked back at her.

  “You’ve figured that part out,” Cynthia continued. “Once he gets there, Andrews will take him under his wing, and no one will need you anymore. That’s what bothers you, right? This isn’t about doing whatever it takes to save humanity. It’s about struggling to keep your power. You need control of Max. If you don’t have that, you’re finished.”

  “We have to go to Colorado soon, whether we’ve secured the asset or not.” Janet sounded eerily calm, as though Cynthia hadn’t spoken.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re running out of drugs. In a couple of weeks, we’ll lose the men.”

  With that, Janet left, and the door slammed shut, casting Cynthia Edwards once more into the darkness of her own personal hell.

  She’d spent the first couple days in here putting herself through a regimen of exercises to prevent her leg muscles from atrophying. The ceiling was too low for her to stand, so she did what she could to stimulate her limbs. There was no telling how long Janet planned to keep her in here.

  Today, the exercises had given her a sharp, shooting neck pain, and she’d abandoned them an hour before Janet had come in.

  It had occurred to her early on that this was essentially what prisoners in solitary confinement experienced—except they would have been able to stand.

  Being kept in here at all was a form of torture. Pointless torture. They didn’t play music anymore, and Janet had never followed through on her threat of waterboarding, but Cynthia was still slowly losing her mind. And it had only been a few days.

  She settled back into the position she’d been in before Janet’s visit and stared at the dark ceiling.

  Do I deserve this?

  She’d spent the last twenty years raising a boy whose entire life was an elaborate lie—a lie she’d helped concoct. There was a good chance that by now, Max knew what she had done, and she couldn’t imagine the feelings of hurt and betrayal he must be experiencing.

  I’m sorry, honey. I hope someday, you can forgive me. I love you.

  Tears slid down her cheeks to spatter on the metal, one by one.

  The door cracked, and sunlight streamed in again. She winced, though it wasn’
t the light that caused her to. She’d come to dread Janet’s visits almost as much as the dark.

  It wasn’t Janet who crawled into the truck, this time. It was Ethan Dean.

  “Come on.”

  He took her by the elbow and helped her to her knees. Together, they shuffled toward the back of the vehicle, the metal hard on Cynthia’s kneecaps.

  “Janet was supposed to let you out. I guess you must have pissed her off again.” He gave a dry chuckle.

  That she’d gotten to Janet after all gave Cynthia a measure of satisfaction as Ethan helped her lower herself to the ground on wobbly legs. With that, he helped her across the circular camp formed by the way they’d parked the vehicles—a defensive formation, no doubt.

  They made their way to one of the camp’s two trailers. She clung to Ethan’s arm as he opened the door, certain she wouldn’t be able to support her own weight. Both her legs felt deadened.

  Peter stood just inside the door, and when he saw her, his face screwed up, like he was about to cry. “Cynthia.”

  “Peter.” She stumbled into his arms, and he caught her. Ethan closed the door behind her, and she heard the lock engage.

  Still prisoners, then. But in a more spacious jail, with a working bathroom.

  She buried her face in her husband’s chest and cried.

  19

  5 days to extinction

  On the morning before their third day of riding, Max staggered to his feet, wincing. His legs felt stiff from the constant micro-adjustments required to stay in Yago’s saddle for ten hours at a stretch. They were especially sore near his groin.

  “Get used to it.” Chambers was already up and standing near the horses with his arms crossed, watching Max stretch out his limbs. “It’ll take us fifteen days to reach the Rockies, and that’s being optimistic. Saddle sores are next.”

  Max nodded. Sleeping in his clothes on the ground wasn’t helping much, either. But he’d made his choice, to evade the agents chasing him. To avoid becoming a weapon to be aimed as Janet Thompson saw fit.