Captives, p.18
Captives, page 18
Walt nodded to himself. "That blows. Ever think we'd have been better off evolving from worms?"
Ahead, the highway was blockaded with burnt-out cars and haphazard piles of barb wire fence. She detoured around it and the one-horse town it sheltered. If it was still being guarded, its people made no show of themselves. She still hadn't seen any pursuit from Abyss, no buzz of engines or wail of dogs. In her experience, trips of this nature tended to fall into one of two categories. Boring, uneventful ones that seemed to take forever at the time, but in hindsight, existed as no more than a blink. And then there were the adventuresome and dangerous ones that snapped past in the moment, but spanned the memory like bay bridges: miles long and built to last.
For the most part, their journey was the former. The mountains were the hardest part. There was nothing in them, no houses with bathrooms to cuff Walt inside. She had to press on until they found a rest station on the other side where she locked him to a toilet paper dispenser. He had some choice words about that which she promptly forgot.
The foothills grew green again. They descended to Pismo on the coast, then hooked inland. After one more day, by the light of the late morning sun, she was there.
From afar, it looked like a LEGO set. The white building at its center, square and trim, a giant American flag branded on its side. The platforms and the bony scaffolds wrapped around the sleek missiles. Warehouses and auxiliary launching pads in gray and white and a bright, toy-like red. A ball-shaped structure propped up by steel stilts.
A figure emerged from the gigantic square tunnel beneath one of the launch pads.
Her heart jammed itself inside her throat. She knew that it couldn't possibly be him, not after all this time, yet a part of her insisted it had to be, or that at the very least it would be a friend who'd know where to find him. She got out her binoculars and set them to her eyes, sweeping them toward the figure as it moved from shadows to sunlight.
She choked. Far below her, the alien drew to a stop, legs and tentacles held close, and gazed up at the sky.
15
He reached for his laser. Halfway to his pocket, he remembered it wasn't there, yet his hand kept moving forward anyway, as if the weapon was a dog that had wandered into the neighboring field but would return with a whistle. He touched empty cloth.
"Do you see that?" Mia whispered.
He didn't have binoculars, but he'd recognized it as soon as it had stepped into the light. "Hard to miss."
"What's it doing here?"
"Want me to go ask?" He motioned to the launching pads. "If I had to guess, it's got something to do with those missiles. Maybe it's building itself a ride home."
"Do you know as much about them as they say?"
"That depends on what they say."
"That you understand them. That you get them." She rolled her free hand in a circle, using the other to keep the binoculars tight to her eyes. "That's how you destroyed them, isn't it?"
"I got lucky." His eyes moved to the pistol on her hip. "All I know is they can't hear, they can sense movement, and they're just as stupid as we are."
"I seem to recall they die if you shoot them in the right place."
"Unless you're fighting rocks, most things do."
Mia lowered the binoculars a few inches. "Let's do that, then."
"What, kill them?"
"I suppose we could talk to them. Maybe they don't know they're trespassing on government land."
The alien was moving, climbing the ramp to ground level. "You can't be serious. If I know one thing about them, it's that aliens and us don't coexist. Raymond can't be here."
"This is the closest I've gotten to him since L.A. Maybe he left a message behind like the Bear Republic Rebels did for us."
"A message to who? His dead wife? Or me, the guy he blamed for it?"
"We can't know what's here until we look." She got out the gun, holding it atop her thigh. "You have two choices. You can help me clear this out. Or we go back to the last town and I handcuff you to a bike rack until I'm done here."
"That's a pretty staggering lack of imagination," he said. "As a third idea, you could let me go. And if those things are here?" He gestured toward the alien as it swung around the ramp and scuttled across the launch pad toward one of the gray outbuildings. "Then maybe it's time to let this go."
"Choose. If they can't hear, that means they won't notice when I shoot you."
Employing that same principle, he swore freely. "When does this end, Mia?"
"When I find him."
"Not your search. You and me. I got you here. If the answers aren't here, I can't give you anything more."
She eyed him levelly. "Then it sounds like it would be time to throw you away."
Way downhill, the alien extended a tentacle to the gray building's door, then disappeared inside. "If I help you kill them, it's the last thing I do for you. After that, you let me go."
He could see all kinds of emotions doing battle for her eyes, but she kept her face a perfect mask.
"Why would you trust me to keep my word?" she said.
"Because the last time we met, you were pretty cool." He showed his teeth. "And if you don't, I'll try to kill you. Win or lose, at least I'll be free."
"Deal."
"Sweet. Then get me a gun and let's get down there."
She gave him a look like he'd suggested bobbing for severed feet. "I'm not rushing in there when we're this close. We wait and we watch."
He sighed. An hour later, having seen no movement anywhere besides that of the sun cranking through fifteen degrees of sky, he began to understand how serious she was about that plan. As he gazed down on the green, tree-spotted fields, and the glaring blue ocean beyond, he had plenty of time to second guess his decision to go to the base with her. He didn't doubt she would have honored her threat to lock him up, but he was skeptical that it would be to the heavy, steel, radiator-style bike rack he'd had in his head. More likely, it would have been to some more plumbing. The kind of thing he could bend or break if he had a few hours to himself and no worries about being heard.
Too late to change his mind, though. She'd be suspicious. Cuff his wrists to his ankles and toss him in the trunk of a car. And if she died down there, he'd have several days of sheer misery to regret his decisions and/or existence.
Nope. He had two routes out: help eradicate the aliens, or murder her. Both good choices. He'd take whichever presented itself first.
The alien stepped out from the gray building and flowed down the ramp on its bevy of tentacles and claws, disappearing into the garages beneath the facility. Two minutes later, it reappeared and returned to the gray building, then cycled through this process a third time.
Mia inhaled sharply, shifting forward onto her knees. "That's our first target. The one that keeps carrying things out of that building."
"What if it's not the only one here?"
"Then we're down one enemy."
Before he could argue, she was snaking down the steep hillside, sticking behind the plentiful bushes and shrubs. After the long walk through the dry valley and enclosing mountains, the coastal humidity was as rich as the scent of the chlorophyll. As they neared the base of the hill, the alien came outside and Mia stopped and got down. As soon as it was back in the tunnels, she moved on.
At ground level, she circled wide, coming around the back side of the gray building. Keeping her head cocked for any rasp of tentacles or churning gravel, she tried the door. It opened. The interior smelled like a halved, raw mussel. Sunlight seeped through the tinted windows into a small foyer. Mia walked forward with her pistol kept high, her eyes roving side to side. Walt was acutely aware of his empty hands. He cast about for something to fill them with—should have grabbed rocks while he was outside—but Mia was already advancing down the hallway, shoes silent on the dusty linoleum.
Doors hung open to either side, the rooms beyond housing a mishmash of computers. Some looked so old they were probably run by a tiny dinosaur with a wry outlook on his profession. Others looked so new they might not have been invented yet. Adding to the disarray, many were in a state of disassembly. Green motherboards rested on desks, surrounded by tiny pill-shaped circuitry (diodes?) and the little rectangular things with the silver pins that always reminded him of robot roly-polies. Stripped wires lay tangled like golden spaghetti. A faint metallic smell hung in the air.
Mia pivoted inside each room, sweeping her pistol from corner to corner. Walt kept watch on the hall, ready to launch himself through a doorway at the first sign of trouble.
Somewhere ahead, a metal door slammed shut.
Mia popped sideways from an office, gun held forward. She trotted down the hall. Walt followed in her wake. It was the most distracted she'd been since busting him out of the prison at the reservoir. He stared at the middle of her back, imagining what might happen if he were to jump on it. She would fight like a demon, though, and if he didn't get her gun away in the first move, they'd wind up in a nasty grapple. Tough work, beating someone down with your bare hands when they were on top of you tooth and nail. If the alien happened upon them during the struggle, they'd both be toast. Even if he disarmed her, she'd come after him. Make him shoot her. Dealing with maniacs wasn't any fun. Insanity was like a superpower. To fight someone who possessed it, you had to tap into some mania of your own.
Ahead, the hallway grew lighter. Mia made an abrupt right into an open lobby, its high windows spilling California sunshine over the bare floor. Halfway across it, an alien looked up from a tarp covered in computer guts. Its bulbous eyes focused on Mia, shifted to him, then jerked back to her; its two thick sensory tentacles shot up, tips expanding like little radar dishes. It fumbled for the blunt pistol dangling from its purple bandolier, the only clothing adorning its long body.
Mia's gun roared. Across the room, a hole appeared in the window, the reinforced glass going foggy with tiny cracks. The gun went off again. The alien's body twitched back, but it stayed in place, held steady by the dozen legs and tentacles connecting it to the ground. Its thin, prehensile tentacle curled around the butt of its laser. A third shot jolted it again. The fourth knocked its baseball-sized eye inside its skull.
Slow as a deep breath, the alien tipped back its head, as if it were a gentleman boxer reassessing an underestimated opponent. It leaned to the side, limbs angling as its body stayed upright, then collapsed in a loose heap.
Gloppy yellow blood oozed to the floor. Mia strode forward, stepping over its limbs, and shot it in the head a second time. Besides the jerk of the bullet's impact, it remained still.
"One down," she said.
"And who knows how many to go." Walt moved toward it, stomach twisting at the familiar smell of its froggy innards, and crouched down, reaching for its bandolier.
Mia shifted her gun on her knee, almost but not quite pointing it at him. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Doubling our firepower?"
She took the laser and pocketed it. "We have to move fast. Before its friends realize it's missing."
With the laser out of play, he stood and backed away from the body. "Or wait here and ambush them one by one."
"No good."
"Really? It sounds a hell of a lot better than strolling into whatever's going on in the tunnels."
She ejected her magazine, replaced it with a spare, and began thumbing fresh rounds into the one she'd removed. "We won't get more than one that way. After the second squid goes missing, the others will wise up. They'll come for us. I don't like the idea of fighting an unknown number of the enemy on ground they know and we don't."
He crinkled his forehead. "What's the alternative? Charge in blindly? I'm going to need much better drugs than adrenaline to get me to do that."
"We don't have to charge." She gazed at the alien, corners of her mouth turned down in disgust, then stood, knees popping. "But we do need to clear the tunnels."
She went to the front doors and watched the grounds beyond. He joined her. Bare pavement and silence. She moved outside, holding the door for him. He nodded an amused thanks. After a long look at the giant white cube overlooking the tarmacs, lots, and outbuildings, they crossed the pavement and entered the wide ramp leading down into whatever lay beneath the launch pads, sticking tight to the concrete wall. This angled in gently, funneling them toward the vast entrance. As they neared, it exhaled the dank smell of a parking garage, along with the organic, coastal smell of something that's rested in the sun too long but hasn't yet begun to rot in earnest.
Mercifully, the smell grew no stronger as they neared the entrance. Walt moved to the side of the gap and peeked inside. The space beyond was cavernous, dimly lit by the sunshine and weak artificial lights. Vehicles and machinery were strewn around the interior. The floor was matted with a flat orange substance that brought back nothing but bad memories. The side walls sported numerous doors and sub-chambers. The machines would offer some cover, but too often, they would be exposed to all sides.
"No." He withdrew around the corner, pressing his back to the wall. "This is crazy. There could be hundreds of them in there."
"Or zero," Mia said. "So far, we've only seen one. If there's a colony in there, it's a sleepy one."
"All it takes is one. Look at this place. Go on, I'll wait."
She brushed past him, smelling like old sweat and burnt powder. He scowled at himself. Was it mental cheating if you didn't mean to think about it? The genitals were traitors to the nobler intentions of the brain. Or maybe the brain was a traitor to the simple commands of the genitals. Either way, it was no wonder they were at constant war.
Mia took a long look and withdrew. "You're right. It looks bad. So what?"
"So there has to be a smarter way than trying to tiptoe in to a place it would take twenty men to cover."
"We can't wait them out. The only question is whether you're coming with me or getting cuffed to a pipe."
He mashed his lips together. "We go in together. But that doesn't mean we have to be idiots about it." He glanced back toward the building where they'd left the alien's body. "You ever see that Far Side cartoon where the guy with the giant ass is complaining about always having to be the rear end of the two-man horse costume?"
She turned and gave him the funniest look he'd seen since they'd joined forces.
* * *
An hour later, they returned to the ramp down to the giant garage. Walt led, Mia following right behind him. She still wasn't letting him carry a gun, but at that moment, walking unarmed into an alien lair was only the second-most stupid thing he was doing.
Even after he'd gutted it and scooped it out, and with its mass distributed across two people, the alien's body weighed a shitload. The tentacles hung from them like clown-balloons full of cucumbers. The head pressed on Walt's like the world's dumbest motorcycle helmet. Careful not to disturb its balance, he glanced back. Mia was hunched beneath the alien's tapered, flattish body, hidden behind a limp screen of tentacles and legs.
He quashed the sudden urge to giggle. "You ready?"
"The sooner we get going, the sooner I can wash off the smell."
"Go." He shuffled forward and she followed suit.
He passed into the shade of the artificial cavern. The orange mat squished underfoot. The smell of greased metal joined the briny undertones of the alien habitation. Half of the vans, carts, and forklifts had their hoods popped, the engines in various states of deconstruction. Parts shined in the sparse light. So did oil slicks. The work on the vehicles wasn't pre-plague. It was current.
He pulled his eyes from the machinery and resumed looking around for the beings responsible for dismantling it. He detoured around the bright puddle of fluorescent light spilling from a buzzing tube in the ceiling. As he neared the wall, he stopped and cocked his head. A faint, metallic click repeated from ahead.
"Do you hear that?" he said.
"Sounds like our mechanic."
The body was starting to slip from his. He slung one of its swaying tentacles around his neck like a scarf and moved forward. The clicking and scraping grew louder. He came to an open doorway. A look inside showed flat tables, machine parts, decent light. He still couldn't see the source of the noise. He whispered the command to move and walked inside.
To his right, an alien hunched over a table, its back three-quarters turned as it manipulated what appeared to be a white toy space shuttle. One of its thick tentacles raised and turned toward the incoming motion. The tentacle paused mid-flex. The alien glanced toward them, returned to its work, then swung back around in a tremendous double-take.
"Shoot it!" Walt waggled a tentacle, spinning its tip like a lasso. "Mia!"
The alien surged to its many feet. The skinned corpse shifted on Walt's head and back; Mia shoved past him, the gun bucking in her hand. Walt clamped his palms to his ears. The gun flashed six times. The alien juddered back, collapsing in stages. It held tight to the toy shuttle even after it stopped moving.
Walt grabbed a pipe wrench from the table, raised it back, and gave the thing's head a satisfyingly crunchy whack. He turned to goggle at Mia. "What the fuck were you waiting for?"
She gestured at the toy. "What was it doing?"
"Getting ready to pull me apart like string cheese! Who cares what it was doing? What does that have to do with why we're here?"
"Maybe you were right," she said. "Maybe they are trying to blast off. To get away from here. The rockets on those pads look like they could reach space."
"Probably because they're ICBMs." Walt glanced at the ceiling, as if he'd be able to see through it to the towering missiles still waiting for someone to push the button. "Better get dressed. The party's not over yet."
He knelt and heaved the body back over his shoulders and head; it had slipped loose while he was administering the coup de pipe wrench. Mia helped settle it over his shoulders, tucking a tentacle into his belt and knotting it. As he adjusted the thick, leathery pelt, his shirt rode up and the cool tentacle brushed his skin, sticking like damp rubber.
