The Uninvited

Chapter Twenty-Seven<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Precisely why the aliens provide medical care – including at least two verified cases of miraculous cancer cures – to their abductees has been hotly debated. The technology they have could be of great benefit to the entire world, yet they only use it sparingly. While the New Agers believe that this is a sign of alien benevolence, I believe that it is the darkest sign of all – the aliens cure abductees for their own reasons, to continue using the abductee for their purposes.
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

San Francisco, USA

“This is Artemis Short,” Howard said, passing Jon a photograph. “You won’t have heard of him.”

Jon and Madiha exchanged glances. Artemis Short had been one of the names Madiha had pulled out of the Pentagon’s computer databases, one of the people with complete clearance and very little oversight from Security. David’s team, in Washington, would be attempting to track him down. And yet...Short, in the photograph, was clearly already in his fifties. Why was he still alive in 2017?

“He’s still alive,” Jon said, quietly. “He’s in the Pentagon.”

“So they made good on their promise,” Howard said, bitterly. “I hope that Short appreciates what they did for him, in whatever hell he’s in now.”

He snorted. “Back when Truman set us up, Majestic’s Chairman was appointed by the President. Charlie Ross wasn't the sort of person you’d expect to be heading up a top secret military and intelligence committee, but he had Truman’s complete confidence and a working brain. When he died later on, Truman appointed someone else and so the post kept changing hands – until Eisenhower. He appointed Short to the Committee and, for whatever reason, Kennedy never replaced him. And then Kennedy was assassinated. Short was somehow able to take advantage of the chaos to ensure that he would have a permanent seat on the committee, rather than be replaced by the next President. I don't know how he sold it to the other Committee members. I guess he convinced them that continuity was better than having a replacement chair every eight years, if they were lucky.

“Short wasn’t the kind of guy everyone liked, but he was very definitely the kind of guy Majestic needed. He wasn't a military officer, with a sense of honour and decency; he came to us from the intelligence sector. He was ruthless, decisive and utterly determined to ensure that Majestic built a working defence against the aliens. It was his bright idea to start farming out alien technology into the public sphere and encourage the independent development of alien-derived technology. You see, we didn't understand most of the technology in the crashed ship, so Short believed that we could start humanity racing along a path that would eventually lead to technological parity – and it would be technology we understood.”

Howard’s lips quirked, humourlessly. “Think about it like this,” he said. “One day, a group of cavemen look out of their cave and see a bunch of fat-ass hippies driving past in a Hummer. Over the next year, the cavemen invent the wheel and build their own cart. It’s slow and crappy compared to the Hummer, but it’s a quantum leap forward for them – and if they break the axel or something, they can rebuild it. And the hippies, those bastards who point and laugh at the cart, don’t have the slightest idea how to repair their Hummer if something goes wrong.”

“And you can bet your life that the cavemen are planning to knock over the hippies and get their hands on the keys to the Hummer,” Jon said, quietly.

“Exactly,” Howard confirmed.

“A question,” Madiha said. “Are the aliens incapable of repairing their own technology?”

“We doubt it,” Howard said. He shook his head, tiredly. “Understand; we know very little about them. We know – we knew – quite a bit about their biology, but next to nothing about their society and how it functions. There could be only a handful of them in the Solar System or there could be a mothership half the size of the moon hiding on the other side of the sun. We used to believe that they were always few in number – maybe no more than a few hundred - but we never knew for sure.

“What we didn't know about Short – what we assume Eisenhower didn't know – was that Short was...not entirely the most stable of personalities. Being in Majestic tended to do that to people; they knew secrets they could never share and felt that they were on the inside, far more knowledgeable than the peons who thronged their way through Washington. Mostly, we were able to deal with personality problems, but Short was the Chair. And when his daughter fell ill – and was not expected to last the year – I think he got a little desperate. If human medical science couldn't save his daughter’s life, what about alien medical science – could it save his daughter’s life?

“****,” Jon said.

“Yeah,” Howard agreed. “We knew that the Greys were abducting humans – we’d offered them vast numbers of unwanted humans, but they’d refused to take them – and we were monitoring the civilian abduction research groups pretty closely. We knew that the aliens sometimes cured the abductees of diseases human medical science couldn't touch, although we doubted that it was out of the goodness of their hearts. We never worked out what made someone useful to the aliens and someone else useless, but once they got their claws into someone, they never let go. Short knew that they could help his daughter.

“We were talking to the Greys from time to time. They provided a limited glimpse into how their technology worked for us. Short wasn’t supposed to be on the contact team, but somehow he convinced the rest of the Committee to allow him to speak directly to the aliens. When he was there, he must have asked them for help in saving his daughter’s life. What I think happened then was that they made a deal. The aliens would abduct his daughter and cure her and in exchange...Short would become their man at Majestic.”

Jon sucked in his breath sharply. “The bastard sold us out?”

“It looks that way,” Howard confirmed. “Or maybe he told the Committee that it was a perfect chance to provide false information to the aliens – give them a double agent, so to speak. That may well be the answer, because we were paranoid about security back then. If there had even been a whiff of betrayal, the Committee would have gone nuts. What happened next...Short took his family on a road trip and, when they were somewhere isolated, the aliens swooped down and abducted the entire family. And yes, they cured his daughter. I understand that she’s one of the richest businesswomen in the world right now. And Short was never quite the same man afterwards.”

He reached into the folder of photographs and produced another picture. “That’s me there,” he said, pointing to a younger man. “That was when I was appointed to the Committee. Majestic was growing more insular at the time and as I’d been working for them for the past fifteen years, they must have decided to appoint me as the Air Force’s representative. It meant that I’d never wear General’s stars, but they promised that they’d make it up to me when I retired. And besides, Majestic was infinitively fascinating. How could I go back to the mundane world?”

His hand tapped faces as he spoke. “Dead, dead...retired and died the following year – that’s Short as he was back then – and Taylor Dee. She would have been the first female General in the Marine Corps if Majestic hadn't recruited her after she managed to embarrass a bunch of intelligence professionals. She climbed the ranks just as I did – Majestic didn't have time for sexism – and reached the Committee at the same time. And it was Dee who put it all together.

“We didn't know about the hybrids at first. We knew that the aliens intended to use our DNA, but we didn't understand how or why, not until we uncovered a hybrid in an isolated farm in Kansas. Apparently, a childless farming couple brought him up from infancy, passing him off as their own child. We only stumbled across him by accident. You see, anything that involved aliens was automatically passed on to us – and you can believe that there was a hell of a lot of ******** flowing in – and we had to check it. His father had gotten very drunk and blabbed the whole story in the nearest town. It should have passed unnoticed, except that when one of our researchers checked on it, he discovered that someone from Majestic had paid the couple several thousand dollars.”

He shrugged. “Majestic always had more money than God – that was Short’s work again – and it might have passed unnoticed, except that Dee had been warning the Committee that too much money was being spent without proper supervision. We were investing in anything that might help us fight the Greys. Dee’s subordinates told her that the couple had been paid money from the general fund and she went ballistic, particularly when no one could tell her why. Short – the Chairman – had authorised it specifically. No one else knew a thing about it.

“Dee got very paranoid and started checking everything. Everyone said that she was something of an obsessive-compulsive personality – but back then, every female officer in the military or intelligence sector had to work twice as hard to prove herself to her male superiors. What she uncovered was an entire series of incidents that made little sense – money being distributed, technical and political support being expended on trivial matters – and she tried to bring it to the attention of the Committee. The Permanent Members weren't interested in listening to her.”

Jon frowned. “I thought she was on the Committee?”

“Yeah,” Howard said. “There were thirteen members in all; the chair, the permanent members and the representatives. She was a representative, which meant that she didn't have the clout of a permanent member. A committee is the only form of life with thirteen heads and no brain. I was just as surprised by their complete refusal to examine the evidence and we started trying to run our own covert investigation into the matter. What we found...

“You have to understand. Majestic was intensely compartmentalised. There were plenty of people who worked for us who had never heard the name Majestic, let alone knew that we were dealing with aliens. Quite a few believed that we were actually involved with stealing and reverse-engineering Russian technology. There were plenty of cases where the right hand didn't actually know what the left was doing. The Committee was meant to put it all together, but they’d been asleep on the job – or so we thought at first. What we uncovered was an entire series of decisions that had been made to benefit the aliens. We were looking at treason on a massive scale.

“It took us months to figure it out and we only solved the mystery through sheer luck. The aliens had been studying humans for decades and they...they might not understand how we thought, but they did understand how our bodies worked. They’d managed to work out how to insert implants into the human mind that...influenced – and then controlled – their victim. Short must have been their first subject at Majestic. When they took him and his family, they implanted him and then returned him as their willing slave. We realised that, over the following twenty years, the aliens had been quietly slipping their own people into Majestic – men and women who were helplessly loyal to the aliens, perhaps unaware of what they were really doing. And they’d infected some of the Committee.”

He ground his teeth together. “Short was one of the people who helped select new Committee members,” he said. “I doubt he had complete control over the process at first, but it would have been easy for him for him to nominate others who were under alien control. By the time Majestic managed to slip out from Presidential supervision and go underground, the aliens were effectively running Majestic – and worse. They were implanting more and more people in positions of power – or who would, one day, assume a position of power. They were inhumanly patient. They could implant someone at birth and allow him to grow up normally, using their other allies to steer him into a position where he could work to further the alien agenda.

“And how could we tell the difference between someone who was under alien control and someone who wasn't? We couldn't – we had no idea who to trust. I think Dee didn't trust anyone, but herself – even me. We had no way of knowing which decisions were being made for the good of the country and which had been dictated by the aliens, for their own purposes. Who could we take it to and be believed? The President – it was Clinton at the time – knew nothing about Majestic. For all we knew, he too was under alien control.”

Jon cursed under his breath. “Are they doing this in other counties too?”

“We never knew,” Howard admitted. “We suspected...but we never knew.”

He pressed his hands together in bitter defeat. “Dee had a fairly good idea of who was under control and who wasn't,” he said. “She told me to stay the hell out of the way and launched – I suppose we might as well call it a coup – against the Committee. It failed; I think that one of the people she’d brought in to help her had actually been implanted himself. They knew in advance about her plan and cut her off at the knees. I don’t know why they didn't kill her outright or implant her – we sometimes wondered if the process wasn't a guaranteed success – but in the end, she was helpless. And so was I. I got out the following year. By then, everyone in Majestic was either implanted or utterly unaware of what was going on.” He laughed bitterly. “And that was the end of our grand plans to thwart the Greys.”

Jon leaned forward. “What do they actually want?”

“Us,” Howard said. “They’ve been inserting their hybrids into human society for years, now that Majestic is working for them. Between them and the implanted humans, they will be able to replace the government of our society and take control – probably of the entire world. If they don’t have control of the President and the State Governors and all those pesky people who have to be elected into power now, it will only be a matter of time before they secure that control – or neutralise them. Eventually, the human race will be pushed aside – by then, we won’t have anything left that we can use to resist.

“I used to help NASA develop new rockets and space technology. Now, NASA is moribund and most of the commercial launch programs are unlikely to advance further. The aliens did that to ensure that we couldn't gain control of space. The government has more and more powers to interfere in your private life than ever before – the aliens did that, just to make it easier to nip possible resistance in the bud. More and more gun control laws are being proposed – the aliens do that to ensure that the civilian population is disarmed when they finally realise the truth. Anyone who dissents from the official version of the truth is mocked and derided, their reputation torn apart by the media. The countdown is finally heading towards zero. And that’s when they will come into the open and take our world.”

“But they can’t implant everyone, surely,” Jon protested. “They couldn't take everyone and abduct them...”

“You think that that matters a good goddamn?” Howard demanded. “They will control the people making the decisions. Half the people in the goddamn intelligence community don’t know where their orders are coming from in the first place. Just imagine a war where half of the defending army is effectively under enemy control. They will probably just have the army muster out to the Nevada desert and drop a handful of iron crowbars on them from orbit. And that will be the end of that.”

“Help us stop it,” Jon said, seriously. “We can still fight...”

“You will be against both the aliens and your own government,” Howard sneered. “How do you intend to win when you don't know who you can trust?”

“Have you been implanted?”

Howard’s eyes opened with remembered horror. “I don't know,” he whispered. “I always wondered why they just let me go. The Greys aren’t particularly vindictive, but they always tie up their loose ends. They could have implanted me and I might be under their control right now – and I wouldn't even know it.”

Jon shrugged. “Come with us anyway,” he said. “Do you have anything we could show the President, any real proof?”

Howard snorted. “You mean – do I have a frozen alien in the basement? Of course not – it was all I could do to just take the pictures when I left. Don’t you understand? They won the war before the first shot was fired...”

“They’re not gods,” Jon said, flatly. “If we can shoot down one of their craft with a missile, we can shoot down others. We can make them back off; perhaps talk to us as equals. Technology has advanced since your day...”

“Yeah,” Howard said. “And who was responsible for that? Without the aliens, we’d still be playing around with vacuum tubes and clunky computers.”

“Help us,” Jon said. “If you help us, we might be able to win.”

“You’re young,” Howard said. He snorted and pulled himself to his feet. “And I'm old.”

Jon’s earpiece buzzed. “Jon, we have two men in black suits heading towards the front door,” Crisco said. “I suggest you head out the back.”

“Understood,” Jon said. “We’ve got company. I suggest that you come with us.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The aliens sometimes do make mistakes. Every day, researchers into alien abduction pray for a real mistake – one that would be impossible to deny. What if an abductee, taken from the US, was to be returned to Britain?
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

New York, USA

Langley hadn't been too happy with him, Charlie knew; the lecture he’d received from his superiors had been sharp and to the point. Questioning orders was not appreciated and he’d been warned that further questioning – and poking his nose into areas he was supposed to leave well alone – would result in disciplinary measures. They’d also rebuked him for failing to pull together a hit-team from the Army of Northern Virginia to send after Jon Sonnenleiter and David Crawford. At least they didn't know that he’d met with Jon Sonnenleiter. They would have probably ordered him shot if they'd known.

He glanced up as one of the computers began to buzz an alert. He’d programmed in a set of specific searches into the national database, ones that would ensure that the CIA would be alerted if the surveillance network tracked down a handful of subjects. It was a mark of the CIA’s clout that he’d been allowed to access and use the database without clearing it with a number of superior officers and oversight groups beforehand. The FBI had the ACLU breathing down their necks and had to get a warrant to use the system for anything short of terrorist activity. It hampered their use of the network to solve crimes, as few FBI agents relished filling out so much paperwork for so little return.

Charlie tapped a command into his personal computer and linked into the live feed from the surveillance network. One of the people he’d programmed the network to watch for was Sharon Mack, the woman who had been abducted – seemingly permanently. Now, the network was blinking up an alert; she’d reappeared, far too close to her house for comfort. A secondary alert, flashing at the bottom of the screen, noted the presence of a stolen car right next to where she was standing - a simple pickup truck. It had been stolen from a farm in upstate New York and driven down into the city. Using the hindsight function, Charlie could track their route as soon as they entered the city. The NYPD would know it too as soon as the network alerted them.

Cursing under his breath, Charlie reached for his hat and coat. Picking up the small CIA-issue terminal, he linked it into the surveillance network and set it to continue tracking Sharon Mack. Taking the terminal into the field was a gross breach of regulations – the thought of what the ACLU would say if it was discovered worried a number of senior personnel – but there was no other choice. He checked his handgun, locked the office and ran down towards the emergency elevator. It delivered him to the basement a minute later, where he climbed into his car and drove off towards Yonkers. If there was time, he might be able to meet Sharon before she vanished again, or before the NYPD started breathing down her neck. She probably didn't know that she was being tracked.

The terminal bleeped and he risked a glance at the small screen. Sharon and her companion – the surveillance network was unable to identify him – were moving, heading towards another flagged address. Charlie bit down a second curse and started to drive faster, ignoring little details like speed limits and traffic cops. The federal plates on his car would allow him to avoid being pulled over, but New York was full of dangerous drivers – particularly taxi drivers. A crash now would be the worst possible luck.

Weaving through the traffic, he scowled down at the terminal. Sharon was heading to William Sonnenleiter’s house, the psychologist that she’d been seeing – and brother to Jon Sonnenleiter, who had recorded the abduction event. Jon had told him that William had hired him to watch Sharon’s house and that had puzzled Charlie, until he'd run a check on William’s name. He was well-known in the world of the paranormal – and, oddly, there was a flag on his name. Charlie’s superiors had been alarmed to discover that he was involved with the whole affair. It had been one of the events that had made Charlie realise that something was very badly wrong.

Charlie swore under his breath. Unlike Sharon’s house, William’s house was still being guarded by the NYPD. Someone at Langley had contacted the Police Commissioner and laid down the law, ordering him to assign a pair of policemen to the house permanently. Sharon didn't know it, but she was walking right into a trap. He gunned the engine and drove onwards. If he was lucky, he'd get there in time to head her off at the pass. If not, he’d just have to wave his CIA card under their nose and hope they didn't insist on calling Langley for instructions. If that happened, Langley wouldn't hesitate to declare him rogue too.

***​

Sharon barely noticed her surroundings as she drove the pickup truck – now on its last legs – down the street and up to William’s house. The area was deserted, apart from a car parked opposite the house. Sharon rubbed her eyes as she parked, feeling tiredness threatening to overcome her. She was completely disoriented and didn't even know how long she’d spent on the alien craft before Sven helped her to escape.

She glanced over at him and was marginally relieved to see that he had dozed off to sleep. Sharon studied him for a moment, watching as he breathed in and out in a precisely regular pattern, and then opened the door. Her legs felt unsteady and she had to hang on to the car to steady herself before she finally managed to walk up the driveway towards the house. If William or his wife were there, she should be able to receive help. If not, she could wait for them as long as it took. She pressed the buzzer and heard someone moving inside the house. A moment later, the door opened and she found herself staring at a young policeman.

“Good morning,” the policeman said, politely.

Sharon blinked at him, unsure what to say. “I'm looking for Doctor Sonnenleiter,” she said, slowly. It had dawned on her that the aliens might have taken William as well, along with his family. “I need to speak with him urgently.”

“He’s been gone for nearly two months,” the policeman said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step inside for a moment.”

“I don’t have time,” Sharon said, puzzled. Why would the police want to hold her, unless they'd already traced the stolen pickup truck and decided to arrest her? “What happened to him?”

The honest puzzlement in her voice must have convinced the policeman that she genuinely didn’t know. “The Doctor and his family went missing,” he said. “There was a struggle of some kind here and the entire family were just taken...”

“Taken?” Sharon repeated, bluntly. “Who took them?”

“We don't know,” the policeman said. “All I know is that the Commissioner received specific orders that anyone who came looking for them was to be held for questioning. We’ve managed to upset quite a number of delivery boys over the last few weeks.”

He smiled. “I will have to ask you to wait,” he said, apologetically. “I’m sorry for the delay.”

Sharon’s mind raced. The moment the cops tracked down the pickup truck, they’d arrest her and Sven for theft and murder – even if the farmer had been pointing a shotgun at them at the time. If the aliens had a link to the federal government, they’d be recaptured without difficulty and then they’d never be given a second chance to escape. But if they ran...Sven could presumably kill the cop with his implanted weapon, yet that would only ensure that the NYPD was after them with blood in their eye. They’d have to hide from both cops and aliens...and she had no idea where to go. Somehow, she was sure that her bank accounts were already frozen, or being held in trust for their heirs.

“I really don't have time,” Sharon said. She hesitated, trying to think. “I just need to let my boyfriend know, if that’s all right with you.”

“Sure,” the cop said. His eyes alighted on the pickup truck and Sharon’s heart almost stopped beating, until it occurred to her that the cop wouldn't be able to recognise the vehicle without running the numbers through the police database. “Nice truck – do you drive it in the city often?”

“No,” Sharon said, quickly. “We were a little pushed for time when we left.”

She turned before the cop could ask her any more questions and walked back down towards the truck, trying to decide what to do. In theory, perhaps they could race away from the house before the cop could react, but what if the cop started shooting? Or what if Sven refused to go any further until she explained what was going on? It was like lugging around an oversized child, with a child’s mentality combined with adult strength and desires. She still hadn't been able to come to any decision when another car pulled up behind the pickup truck and a short man climbed out, wearing a hat that managed to obscure most of his features.

“You must be Sharon,” he said. He paused, as if he were unsure what to say next. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” Sharon lied. She was surprised that the newcomer knew her name. “Who are you?”

“Just call me Charlie,” the man said. “Doctor Sonnenleiter isn't here at the moment, but I can take you to him. Will you come with me?”

Sharon studied him thoughtfully. She didn't know the newcomer and, ever since she had been a child, she had been leery about having anything to do with strangers. That wasn't a result of her abductions, but simple human paranoia. Bad things happened to children who trusted the wrong stranger too much. On the other hand, it wasn't as if she had anywhere else to go, not without money or credit cards. She doubted that her friends in the city would help her if they knew that she was wanted by the NYPD...

“All right,” she said. “You should know that the cop up there” – she waved a hand towards the policeman – “wants a word or two with me first.”

“I’ll deal with him,” the newcomer said. “You and your boyfriend get into my car. We’ll leave the stolen vehicle here.”

Sharon was still wondering how the newcomer knew the vehicle was stolen – and what he was doing here in the first place – once she got Sven moved into the new car and took a seat herself. The newcomer was talking to the cop and waving a card under his nose. The cop looked irritated by the newcomer, but reluctantly agreed to stand aside. Or so Sharon believed; for all she knew, they were talking about the football results. Eventually, the newcomer walked back to his car and climbed into the driving seat.

“I’m taking you to a safe house for now,” he said, as he gunned the engine. “Why don't you tell me what has happened to you since you disappeared?”

Sharon took a breath and started to explain.

***​

Charlie listened to her story with the uneasy feeling that he would prefer to take refuge in frank disbelief. It sounded absurd, on the face of it, and yet there was that damned recording... Sharon explained how she’d been taken, how she’d been ‘mated’ with Sven and how they’d managed to escape the alien craft. Charlie wondered, inwardly, what it meant if her story was actually true. It seemed unlikely that they weren't keeping a close eye on her – or on their latest hybrid. He might have betrayed himself by coming to rescue her.

“Right,” he said, finally. “And you saw no sign of the aliens since you fled from their craft?”

“No,” Sharon confirmed.

“We wouldn't see anything if they were following us,” Sven said, eagerly. The young man worried Charlie. He was clearly in excellent shape, yet it was obvious that he lacked the self-discipline to control himself. The streets of New York provided all sorts of temptations; Charlie caught him staring out of the window at a group of young girls in very skimpy clothes, leering towards them with a total lack of concern. Charlie was silently grateful that the windows were tinted and the girls were unaware of his stare. “They can bend light around their craft. One of them could be right above us now and we wouldn't know about it.”

“Right,” Charlie said. “And how do you know that they are not tracking us?”

Sven considered it. “Because they don’t really care about us,” he said, finally. “The only person who cares about me is Sharon.”

He reached out and gave her a hug that somehow turned into a groping session. Charlie kept his face expressionless, but somehow he doubted that their relationship would last much longer. Sharon had a husband and children. She wouldn’t want to be pawed by an overgrown child, certainly not one who seemed to be under the impression that he had an absolute right of access to her body. And yet, there was something utterly unselfconscious about it. Charlie had met with foreign warlords and dictators who had delighted in showing off their power over their female slaves – he still shuddered when he remembered dealing with an African who had kept a vast harem of kidnapped girls, only a handful over sixteen – and they had been unpleasant. Sven seemed not to be aware that his actions were crossing the line – or even that there was a line to cross.

If what Sharon was saying was true, Sven might not be even as old as he looked. The aliens might have quickened him somehow, compressing sixteen years into five, leaving him with the body of a grown man and the mind of a child. His mind was clearly more advanced than a five-year-old boy’s mind, yet it was clear that whenever his thoughts drifted away, he returned to childhood. Charlie rather suspected that his long-term stability was rather questionable.

He parked the car near the apartment and took a moment to check it out before waving for Sharon and Sven to follow him. The apartment was owned by a dummy corporation that was actually owned by the CIA, providing a safe house for debriefing Russian defectors and – sometimes – a home for members of the ANV. Charlie had quietly allowed soldiers to use it from time to time; now, he hoped, it would keep Sharon and Sven safe while he arranged to have them transported out of the city. By now, the cops had probably tracked down the missing vehicle and would pass the word up the chain. His superiors would know the truth. In hindsight, Charlie realised, he should have operated through a representative. They couldn't stay at the apartment for long.

Sven seemed oddly fascinated by the apartment and Charlie watched as he explored, poking at the large collection of DVDs and music tapes in wonderment. The aliens, he guessed, hadn't tried to show their hybrid children movies, or take them to Earth for field trips. Sven was starting to act like a hyper-active child, one who really should be in bed. Charlie paused to exchange a few words with Sharon – and show her where the hidden money was stored in the flat – and then walked out of the apartment. There was an internet cafe within two blocks of the apartment, one designed for privacy if not comfort.

Jon Sonnenleiter had given him an email address to use if he needed to make contact, warning him that they couldn't consider the internet to be completely secure. Charlie understood what he meant; by now, his superiors had probably decided to declare him rogue, which meant that the full weight of the CIA – and the other intelligence agencies – would be devoted to looking for him. Unlike Jon, he didn't have the resources to stay underground for long, although he did have a few tricks up his sleeve. On his own, maybe he could hide; with Sharon and Sven, it would be impossible. He needed help.

He composed the email message quickly, requesting a meeting. Jon would read the message, wherever he was, and send back a reply confirming the time and date of their meeting, hopefully before the searchers decided to check the CIA-owned apartments. He’d taken the precaution of removing the apartment from the list of safe houses, but the searchers might have access to other lists. The odds were not favourable.

Leaving the cafe behind him, he had an odd sense of freedom for the first time in years. He’d walked away from his superiors and the entire CIA and now he was on his own, accountable to no one, but himself. He was free. Perhaps it was how Sven felt, when he bothered to feel anything at all. Perhaps that was why he had decided to escape from his creators. There was no way to know for sure.

High overhead, something moved. Charlie ducked into a shop entrance and peered upwards, one hand on his concealed holster. It was a single helicopter, turning in lazy circles high overhead before flying off towards the airport in the distance. Charlie was old enough to remember how empty the skies had been just after 9/11. Now...he wondered if he would ever be able to walk out under the sky without fear. Who knew what was up there, looking down at him? Who knew who was waiting for a chance to swoop down on him?

Pulling his coat around him, he walked back to the apartment. The only thing he could do now was wait – and pray.

 

Nice job! keep 'em coming.

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Another issue relating to the hybrids is that some of them appear to be being designed – either through genetic or mechanical intervention – for different roles within the alien society. We might then postulate, therefore, that the alien world is shaped like an ant colony, with different tasks being delegated to different castes of aliens, hybrids – and perhaps humans. What role might we play in an alien world?
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

San Francisco, USA

There was a thump at the door as they turned towards the back exit. Howard darted over to a small computer, keyed it and swore when the screen came on. Two men, wearing black suits and ties, were standing there, pushing at the door. The image kept flickering oddly, as if the camera was having trouble focusing on them. Their faces remained blurred.

“Alien warriors,” Howard said, bitterly. “You led alien warriors to my door.”

Jon didn't bother to acknowledge the sally. “What are alien warriors?”

Howard snorted as he ran open to a cabinet and threw it open, revealing a stash of assault rifles and grenades. The stash would have been completely illegal in San Francisco, unless Howard had kept some of his Majestic ID when he left the organisation. He might have kept a Blue Card – if they had had Blue Cards back then – but even so, such a stash would certainly have raised eyebrows. Howard pulled an M16 off the rack and tossed it to Jon.

“It’s loaded with armour-piercing explosive bullets,” Howard grunted, as he tossed a second rifle to Madiha. Jon raised an eyebrow. Explosive bullets were rare; most soldiers distrusted them and regarded them as more dangerous to their own side than to the enemy. “The warriors will be able to soak up normal gunfire, even if you shoot the bastards through the head. Blowing them to pieces is the only way to stop the ****ers permanently.”

Jon checked the rifle as Howard produced a set of grenades. “They’re hybrids designed for fighting,” Howard added. “They’re inhumanly strong and fast and capable of absorbing incredible amounts of damage. They must be desperate; we’ve only seen alien warriors a couple of times and both times they left incredible amounts of devastation behind them. They can't pass for human – not if someone looks closely – which is their only saving grace...”

“One of them attacked my apartment,” Madiha said. “What else have they done?”

“Back in the sixties, there was a rogue Majestic agent who believed that the aliens killed President Kennedy and deserted with his girlfriend to wage open war on the Greys,” Howard said. The banging from downstairs was growing louder. “They may have worried the aliens – we don’t know for sure. All we know is that the warriors caught up with them and tore them apart. We only found bits and pieces of their bodies scattered around.”

There was something odd about that statement, but Jon couldn't place it. “And then there was the abductee in the Sudan,” Howard continued. “One of the hordes of barbarians who were tearing the place apart took her hostage. God alone knows why the aliens decided to intervene, but the entire tribe was brutally slaughtered – a French aid team found the hostage in the midst of the ruined village, surrounded by dead bodies. She was completely cationic and never recovered.”

“Perhaps they were testing out the warrior concept,” Jon suggested. The internal CCTV camera showed that the door was starting to break. Howard had reinforced it, he realised, a common survivalist trick. Hell, it was used to deter burglars as well. “Why don’t we just head out the back door...?”

“Do you think that those bastards are going to stop coming after us?” Howard demanded. “They won’t stop until we have been eliminated. Our best chance to kill them is when they come up the stairwell and...”

Jon shook his head. He’d had enough experience in hard entry to know that that was mutual suicide. “Give me the grenades,” he said, picking up a handful of tools and equipment from Howard’s table. “You and Madiha start heading out the back. I’ll deal with these guys.”

He walked back to the stairwell and started to rig up an IED. There was – as American and Coalition forces had discovered in Iraq and Afghanistan – no great trick to making an IED. Jon had been trained in Ranger School – and a handful of training courses that weren't often spoken about publically – and knew how to rig up an IED to slow down enemy pursuit. It had often occurred to him that he would have made a good insurgent – back when he’d been nursing fantasies about blowing away all the politicians who refused to allow homosexuals to serve on active duty – and it rather explained why the aliens had had so much success against the Clan. If barely-trained insurgents could slow up the best of the Western armies, what could men who had been through the best the US Army could provide do to their country?

There was a final crashing sound and the door crashed inward. The two alien warriors advanced carefully into the darkened room. The image kept fizzing and blurring out, but it was clear that the aliens had no trouble operating in the semi-darkness of the store. Jon spoke a silent word of apology – he would have loved to spend time browsing in the store himself – and rigged up the trigger wire. As soon as it was complete, he turned and sprinted towards the rear exit, praying that the aliens hadn’t had the time to seal off all of the escape routes.

He scowled as he remembered what Howard had said. If he was right – if the aliens had taken over Majestic by implanting mind-controlling implants into the men who ran the Committee – it wasn't impossible that Howard himself had been implanted, without his knowledge. The aliens might have left him in San Francisco with the illusion of free will, knowing that anyone who tracked him down would walk right into their arms. Howard hadn’t acted like a traitor, or a man with something to hide, but then he wouldn’t – would he? The best way to lie was to believe that one was telling the truth. Or perhaps a security camera had picked them up near the building and flashed an alert to the aliens. There was no way to know for sure.

The rear exit was really nothing more than a glorified fire escape. Someone had built the external stairs and then rigged up a covering that made it look as if they were part of the building. Jon knew little about building apartment blocks, but he rather suspected that that was dangerous, if not illegal. The stairwell rattled under his feet as he hauled ass out of the building and through a plywood door that wouldn't have stood up to one good kick. It was a surprisingly large hole in Howard’s defences and it only added to Jon’s concern. Or perhaps it wasn't surprising. The back yard was surrounded by a high wall, topped with barbed wire and broken glass. It was fairly secure, at least to small-town thieves. Jon could see a dozen ways to break in and he was sure that San Francisco’s criminal underworld would be able to see them too. Or perhaps they just felt as if there was nothing of value in the building. If they’d known about the photographs, they would have meant nothing to them.

There was a dull thump from behind him, followed by a colossal blast of fire that billowed out of the windows and set fire to the entire building. Jon was rather impressed by his own handiwork, even as bits and pieces of debris clattered down all around him; he hadn't expected such a large explosion. Howard must have been storing something else up there that exploded under the pressure. It was a shame that they hadn't had time to rig up something really explosive, but it should have caught both warriors in the blast.

He ran through the gate and towards where Howard and Madiha were waiting. Howard was holding his rifle as if he expected to see an alien running towards him, while Madiha was clearly out of her depth. It hadn’t occurred to Howard, clearly, that she might not know how to use anything heavier than a handgun. Jon had taught her the basics, back before the world had gone crazy, but they’d never touched on rifles. He keyed his radio as he ran and updated Crisco on the situation. The three of them could head to the nearest point of safety while the other two covered their retreat...

There was a crash behind him and Jon turned in disbelief. A dark figure had just leapt out of the inferno, jumping down to come crashing down in the back yard. Howard lifted his rifle – there was nothing wrong with his arms, at least – as the figure emerged from the back yard. It was burned – the suit had been blown away – but it was still coming. Jon felt a flicker of fear as he lifted his own rifle. There was no one in the army who could have done that and still kept moving. It was absolutely insane. Howard opened fire and hit the warrior directly in the chest, his bullets exploding and blowing great chunks of flesh out of the warrior. The creature swayed on its feet, reminding Jon of some of the drugged-up insurgents they had fought in Iraq, before its legs gave out and it collapsed to the ground. It was still twitching as Howard shot it again and again, screaming incoherently as he burned through his bullets.

“Stop that,” Jon shouted at him. The warrior might be tough, but it was clearly dead – and there was no sign of its companion. He keyed his radio again, cursing. “Crisco – we need emergency extraction. Get round and...”

“Put the goddamned guns down,” a new voice bellowed. Jon turned to see a pair of policemen running towards them, weapons raised. Two others had taken cover behind the nearest cars, ready to catch them in a deadly crossfire if they offered resistance. “Put the guns down now and raise your ****ing hands, right ****ing now!”

Jon hesitated. The last thing he wanted was a shootout with the police, who were only doing their jobs – or were they? Where had their orders come from in the first place? Were they responding to an APB about shots being fired, or had they been ordered to remain nearby by a superior whose thoughts were no longer his own? Howard had been right; the entire situation just bred paranoia. And besides, the moment the police checked them against the national criminal database, they would know just who they had caught. Jon would be transferred to federal custody, which meant Majestic. They’d either shoot him out of hand or send him to the aliens for implanting. His thoughts would no longer be his own.

Howard’s hands were twitching. “Not human orders,” he hissed. “We need to get out of here...”

“Put the guns down and raise your hands,” the policeman ordered. “This is your last warning. Put the guns down or we open fire...”

A flash of...something flickered through the air and struck one of the cars the policemen were using for cover. It exploded, picking up the policeman and tossing him through the air like a ragdoll. The explosion broke the deadlock and Jon grabbed Madiha, pushing her to the ground as Howard hit the deck beside them. Three more men in black were running towards them, firing indiscriminately towards both policemen and their targets alike. Their faces were blurred, but Jon realised that they were intent on extracting deadly revenge for the death of their comrades. They weren't thinking very clearly either. The ID they carried could have been used to force the policemen to hand over their captives at once, but instead they were resorting to naked force. A policeman who got in their way was picked up and killed effortlessly as the alien crushed his neck. The other policemen, turning to fire on the new threat, were rapidly and efficiently eliminated.

“Come on,” Howard hissed. Jon nodded, sourly. Even though the policemen had been trying to arrest him, he would have preferred to help them against the aliens. Instead, the policemen would have to cover their retreat, quite unwillingly. “The warriors are going mad.”

Jon frowned. “Going mad?”

“The aliens aren't very emotional,” Howard said, as they ran for their lives. His voice was coming out in fits and starts, but somehow he managed to keep it level. “Humans, on the other hand, are practically governed by their emotions. The first hybrids were emotional cripples; they were either bad impressions of Mr Spock or they had no emotional control or discipline at all. One of them committed the worst set of serial rapes and murders in the States a year or so before I left Majestic. The fool of a defence attorney was actually right – the bastard couldn't help it.”

He paused for breath as the fighting behind them died away. “The warriors are programmed to be aggressive, very aggressive. They have no sense of proportion; no sense of restraint – if someone shoots at them from a village, they’re liable to lay waste to the village and then gas the remains just to make sure. We used to think that the only way to stop one was to hit it with an antitank round and...”

Another car exploded, right in front of them. Jon hit the ground again and crawled behind the nearest car, gambling that the aliens wanted them alive. Two men in black were running after them, their hands raised, as a child would shape a gun with his fingers. Something invisible flickered through the air and a camper van exploded. Jon found himself praying that any locals had gotten the hell out of the area before the fighting spread out onto the streets. Whatever weapons the aliens were armed with – some kind of laser, Jon guessed – they clearly didn't have any concerns over civilian casualties. If Howard was right about the warriors being effectively uncontrollable, he was mildly surprised that they hadn't merely shot the three humans in the back as they ran.

He lifted his rifle and took aim at the lead man in black, firing two quick shots towards his target. The warrior somehow – incredibly – dodged the shots. For a second, he moved so quickly that he was a blur, before slowing down again and continuing to advance towards the three humans. Jon wondered why they weren’t firing, before realising that their weapon had no stun setting. But then, nor did most human weapons. Non-lethal weapons were always tricky in a real battle. Jon knew of units that had tried to use them in Afghanistan and discovered that while they worked fine in the lab, they worked poorly – if at all – in the field.

He cast a look at Howard and realised that the old man was preparing a suicidal charge at the aliens. Jon wanted to tell him to hang back, but what was the point? If he was captured by the aliens, his worst nightmare would come true – a return to Majestic as an alien slave. And Jon himself knew too much to be allowed to fall into alien hands; hell, they all did. He looked over at Madiha, her brown face paler than ever, and knew himself to be damned. He would have to shoot his friend in order to save her.

A pair of shots rang out and the aliens stumbled to the ground. Jon lifted his rifle, his hands moving almost of their own accord, and pumped explosive bullets into the alien bodies. Howard followed suit, and then pulled at Jon to run. Jon remembered how Madiha apartment had exploded after they’d killed the alien and grabbed at her, pulling him with her towards cover. They were barely in time. The alien bodies exploded violently, devastating the area. It looked as if a bomb had hit it.

Jon looked up as a car drove up beside them. Crisco stuck his head out. “Want a lift?”

“Yeah,” Jon said. He looked inside to see Gaby, who was fondling her rifle and looking pleased with herself. “Good shots.”

“I live to serve,” Gaby said, wryly. “Now get in and let’s get out of here before something else decides to go wrong.”

***​

After a brief consultation, they decided that the safe house was probably compromised, so they ended up going to an expensive hotel and claiming to be a small party on vacation from work. As Jon had expected, waving a credit card with a suitable amount of funds under the receptionist’s nose put an end to any questions she might have, such as where was their luggage. They’d taken the precaution of stopping in at a clothes shop and changing clothes, including picking up a handful of supplies that allowed them to disguise Howard sufficiently to prevent the cameras from picking up his presence. The receptionist had handed them their keys and told them that dinner was served at six. Jon hadn't bothered to argue.

As soon as they’d entered the room, Jon had turned on the television. “...Sources within the police force had confirmed that a gunfight between rival drug lords spilled out onto the street earlier this morning,” the newsreader said. “The police are currently investigating claims that an illegal weapons dealer supplied both sides with heavy weapons that...”

“Lies,” Howard said, disgustedly. “Majestic has controlled the media for a long time.”

Jon blinked. “All of it?”

“Everything that was available back then,” Howard said. “I think they probably would have problems in dealing with talk radio – although have you ever realised how many politicians often attempt to pass bills regulating talk radio? But then...as the aliens gain control over political leaders, it won’t be long until they rule the world. They may control the world already.”

He shook his head. “And yet we killed some of them today,” he added. “Perhaps there’s hope for us after all.”

Madiha frowned. “But why control the media?”

“Think about it,” Howard said. “Who controls the media controls what diet of lies – or slant – is fed to the human population, and therefore control public opinion. You can make or break a politician by slanting the news for or against him. And you can convince people that the space program is a waste of money and everyone who claims to see an alien spacecraft in the sky is just a kook who should be locked up for his own good.”

He scowled. “The bastards cost us the Vietnam War by lying to the American public about it,” he added. “What could they do when the aliens come out into the open? Tell us that they come in peace, probably.”

“We are of peace, always,” Gaby quoted.

“Exactly,” Howard said. “And peace is merely the absence of war.”

 

Chapter Thirty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Who benefits from keeping the abduction program a secret – or an object of laughter and derision? Answer - the aliens. The human race doesn't benefit at all.
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Washington DC, USA

Markus Wilhelm felt oddly uncomfortable in civilian clothes, even though it was hardly the first time he’d gone off-base wearing a civilian outfit that was carefully tailored to avoid raising eyebrows. As a younger Marine in Force Recon – the elite of the Marine Corps – he had donned native clothing when the situation required it, but wearing civilian clothes while in duty still felt a little odd. And then there was the whole business of carrying out an operation on American soil. Legal or not, it still felt weird.

The Marine Close Protection Detail provided bodyguards for political and military leaders who might be expected to be an enemy target – which, in an age of terrorism, was all of them. Some Marines were assigned to guard the White House and American embassies around the world, but others operated as a more conventional bodyguard force, sometimes making their presence obvious and sometimes lurking in the background. Even when the President went walkabout, shaking hands with supporters and detractors alike, the Secret Service tried to maintain an ironclad curtain of security around him. It was all the more difficult because intrusive bodyguards could give the wrong impression. Markus, who had learned how to read a crowd from an early age, had seen how they reacted to too many bodyguards. A political leader who seemed to fear his people made them suspect that he had reason to fear them. Politics was a dirty business sometimes.

But the CPD had another role, surveillance and counter-surveillance. Anyone who wanted to assassinate a President or another political figure – apart from lone wolf terrorists, who presented their own problems – would have to carry out target surveillance first. They would need to study the target’s routines – where they lived, where they worked, what route they took to work and back, who they visited, what made them change their routine – and determine the best time and place for an ambush. It was also the best time for the defenders – the bodyguards – to disrupt the planning process and prevent their principal from ever being in real danger. If they could spot a team of surveillance operatives carrying out surveillance, they could deal with them before they ever posed a serious threat.

Markus smiled as he settled back in the car’s seat. To do counter-surveillance, someone had to learn surveillance, just so they could put themselves in the shoes of their enemies. Every month, the Marine CPD assigned a team to the enemy role and gave them a target to watch and study. At the end of the assigned period, the Marines were expected to turn in a full report – and their counterparts, the bodyguards, were expected to catch them in the act. Markus had been made several times, while at other times he had remained undetected and embarrassed the bodyguards, suggesting to them that their security was not ironclad.

The odd thing about the current assignment was that it had come directly from the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Rumour suggested that the Commandant would be travelling overseas soon and would be looking for the best close protection detail to escort him, but Markus found it a little odd. They’d had to shadow real targets before as well as people merely playing the role of target, yet their current target was unusual. Or perhaps that was the point. Tracking a political leader wasn't difficult. Tracking a pentagon worker drone would present different challenges.

Artemis Short lived in a very nice part of Washington, suggesting that he had either inherited money or somehow done very well for himself out of the Pentagon. The briefing hadn't contained any more details; the team was supposed to work it out for themselves, which was why several other members of the detail were grinding their way through tax records and other files that members of the public – or the media – would be able to access. By the end of the week, they would hopefully know enough to start planning an ambush – which would remain purely theoretical. Markus leaned forward as the big gates started to open – like many other rich men, Short maintained a private force of security guards these days – and his car emerged, turning right and heading down towards the inner city. Markus keyed his radio and muttered a confirmation as soon as he saw Short’s head, alerting the team up ahead. A second car would swing out and shadow Short through his drive to the Pentagon.

The secret to effective counter-surveillance was looking for familiar faces, particularly faces that had no right to be there. The secret to effective surveillance was to avoid being made by not showing the same faces and vehicles time and time again. Short didn't know it, but twenty-five Marines – all dressed in civilian clothes – were assigned to his case. By the time he reached the Pentagon, four other cars would have taken turns following him, just to prevent his bodyguards from picking up on their presence.

Markus gunned the car and pulled out himself, carefully heading in the opposite direction. He would drive the long way around and head back to the civilian garage they’d taken over as a base of operations. It sold gas to civilians, all right, but nothing else; it was a wonder to outsiders how the garage remained in business. The truth was that it served as a covert operations point for the Marines. Once he was there, he would change cars and head to the Pentagon. If Short kept up with his daily schedule, they'd be ready to follow him when he left and headed to his next destination.

The hours passed slowly until Short emerged again, this time heading out towards a corporate headquarters. As yet, the team had been unable to find out what Short was doing there, but it was so blatant that Markus had difficulty believing that he was up to something illegal. Given his clear wealth, it was possible that Short had friends or relatives in the commercial world; they’d have to wait and see what the research teams turned up. Markus passed the surveillance onto the next car and slipped back, turning off to take – again – the long way around. Short would never be out of their sight, at least when he was in public. As yet, there was no way to follow him into either the Pentagon or the corporate headquarters without tipping their hand.

That night, the off-duty members of the team put the information together on the target board. Short stuck to a routine that seemed unvarying, something that Pentagon security experts castigated whenever they discovered it. A routine was predictability; a routine meant that a surveillance team could plan an ambush at leisure, secure in the knowledge that their target would drive right into it without any sense that they were being targeted. Short got up early, was driven by his bodyguard to the Pentagon, left at 1600 and drove to the corporate headquarters, where he stayed for two hours before driving home. It never varied, even on the weekends. Short seemed devoted to his job.

“Boring,” one of the team members commented. Markus could only agree. They’d tracked political leaders who had been dumb enough to make use of the red light district and others who had used high-class madams to feed their need for sex with very young girls. The politicians had also been tracked by the media, which had effectively terminated their careers. “You’d think that someone so rich would have an interesting sex life at least.”

Markus shrugged. Short seemed to live alone, apart from a butler, a cook, a maid and a small army of security personnel. It was interesting – and potentially worrying – that they hadn’t been able to identify any of the security personnel, even though they should all have been registered in Washington. The more he studied Short’s life, the less it seemed to make sense, suggesting that the man was rather more than just another worker drone. He held no military rank or title, yet...he clearly had authority and considerable clout.

“Never mind,” he said. “We’ll see what the data miners bring in.”

The following evening, he found himself waiting at the corporate headquarters for Short to leave the building. He’d switched vehicles again and had been in position, but it still caught him by surprise when Short left the building and turned down the wrong street. Markus cursed himself under his breath as he followed, knowing that it would look very bad on the report. They’d fallen into the trap of complacency and had been taken by surprise. He should have known better. Markus followed Short as best as he could, keeping at a distance as Short drove towards a warehouse complex at the edge of the city. There was no logical reason for him to go there, but – the team decided – it could be decisive.

Short paused at a security booth and passed through the gate once he’d shown his card to the guard. Markus drove past as if he hadn't a care in the world, but parked out of sight. The area looked rundown and deserted – another victim of the great economic crash of 2009 – yet it was clear that at least some of the buildings were inhabited. Perhaps one of them was a whorehouse, selling the kind of pussy that just couldn't be found in the more mainstream areas of Washington...the thought sickened Markus and drove him onwards. He knew, somehow, that the team had been right. This was decisive.

“Get the records on the building,” he subvocalised, as he slipped up to the fence. It was a very simple chain-link fence, covered with signs saying WARNING: KEEP OUT. The presence of the night watchman would probably deter the usual run of thieves and criminals, although not someone with SF training. “Let me know who owns this building and why.”

The remainder of the team would be coming in now, fanning out to ensure that no one could leave the building without being seen. Markus donned his NVGs and peered around, looking for hidden cameras. There were two covering the back, but whoever had emplaced them clearly hadn't realised that they had a blind spot. He checked carefully, just in case it was a trap and someone had left the blind spot to lure intruders into where they wanted them, yet there was no sign of any other cameras. He was over the fence in a second, ready to fight or run as necessary, and moved stealthily towards the warehouse. His feet trod very quietly in concrete and broken glass. Someone had been tossing used bottles over the fence and into the car park. He reached the wall and slid along, under the cameras, until he reached the back entrance. It was locked, of course, but he could have picked the lock in his sleep. He took longer checking for pressure pads and other unpleasant surprises then he spent picking the lock.

Inside, the warehouse was cool, yet the air was slightly clammy to the touch. Markus shivered, despite himself, as he slipped forward. He could hear someone speaking in the distance, strange hissing words that didn't seem to be part of any language he knew. Markus spoke Arabic, Farsi and Pashto in addition to English, but the words he was hearing sounded even stranger than Farsi. They sounded eerie, almost alien. He turned the corner and stared right into the heart of the warehouse. It was crammed with cylinders, each one large enough to hold a man, and wooden boxes marked with unfamiliar letters. At one end of the room, he saw Short and four other men, all wearing black suits. A door opened in the side of the warehouse and he saw a woman with long blonde hair, wearing the same black suit. She was conventionally pretty, but her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses and there was something weird about the way she moved. It was almost as if she was a spider, hunting for prey.

The discussion seemed to be agitated. Short was clearly holding up one end of the discussion, while the others were ganging up on him. Even so, Short was acting more like a sergeant facing a mob of unruly soldiers than a Washington office drone facing angry men. The woman seemed to be amused by the whole discussion. She stepped forward and clung to one of the dark-suited men, chatting away in the eerie language. Her smile was utterly inhuman. Markus slipped back and started to head back to the door out into the night. He had to summon reinforcements and come back to the warehouse. The surveillance mission had just turned into...what? The warehouse was a perfect place to hide something in Washington – had Short become involved with a group of terrorists? There was a sound in front of him and he saw a man standing there, lifting a small silver device that looked rather like a pen. Markus’s combat instincts screamed that it was a weapon and he tried to jump the man, but it was too late. There was a blinding flash of pain – as if his entire body was suddenly on fire – and then everything plunged down into darkness and vanished.

***​

“The Washington PD found the body early this morning,” General Nicolas said, grimly. The cold air of the morgue was matched by his icy voice. “This is – was – Markus Wilhelm. I assigned him and his team to follow Artemis Short and build up a profile on his life. Instead...”

He drew the sheet back from the bed. David winced as he saw the Marine’s body. His face was contorted, as if he had died in horrible agony, and his skin was torn and broken. There was no obvious cause of death, yet David was certain that the young man hadn't died well.

“I see,” he said, finally. Another person was dead at the hands of the aliens. He’d mourn later, if he lived that long. “What happened to him?”

“And seven others,” Nicolas said. “They followed Short to a deserted warehouse – apparently, it belongs to International Export, which is a CIA front company – and Wilhelm followed him inside. What happened after that...? All we know is that we found Markus’s body in the Potomac and we have no idea what happened to the remainder of the forward team. They’re gone. Perhaps their bodies just haven’t been discovered yet...”

David leaned forward. “And the warehouse itself?”

“Apparently, they have some kind of exception – political cover that ensures that the police don't take such an interest in it,” the General said. “That’s not uncommon if it’s a CIA building and might be storing embarrassing items, or something. I forgot about applying for a warrant and sent in a search party of armed Marines. They found nothing. The warehouse had been totally stripped bare and abandoned. Langley sent me a rocket about it and I told them to go **** themselves.”

David had to smile. “And what happened to Short?”

“He’s back at his house, returned to his normal habits,” Nicolas said. “He’s working for Majestic, definitely. I don’t think that anyone else would have the sheer nerve to eliminate a Marine team and then carry on as if nothing had happened.”

“True,” David agreed. A vision formed in his head, of a sniper putting a bullet through Short’s head and blowing his brains over the street. It might slow the aliens down if they lost one of their allies, or perhaps it would just annoy them. “Do you think that you’re going to hear more from Langley?”

“Probably,” Nicolas said. “And then I ordered Marines to operate in Washington without permission from higher authority. If someone pushes for an investigation, I’ll put the cards we have on the table – Short was clearly up to something and the Marines were killed to cover it up.”

“Or they might just decide to eliminate you,” David warned. “You just marked yourself out as one of their enemies.”

“No one gets close to me without having their blood tested,” Nicolas confirmed. He grinned. “It turns out that regulations are a little vague on what kind of bodyguards I’m allowed to claim if I feel I’m in danger, so I have a team of armed Marines surrounding me. My family has been moved to Quantico where they will be heavily protected – everyone who goes in and out of the secure zone gets their blood tested as well. Still...we can't go on like this. We need to take it to the President and get authority for a full testing program and then a decapitation strike.”

“If we had a target, it might work,” David said, sourly. “As it is, we might be dealing with a tiny part of their overall operation.”

“If they’re willing to take the risk of eliminating an entire team of Marines, they’re clearly ready to move ahead and make their presence known to the entire world,” Nicolas countered. “I’ve been speaking to some...others, but very few are willing to act without presidential authorisation.”

David nodded. The same factors that made a military coup in American highly unlikely mandated against independent action by military officers, even if they believed they were in the right. Normally, it was a good thing – the one of the reasons why the Arab militaries were poor was because their leaders knew they couldn't trust strong subordinates – but now...anyone Nicolas approached might believe that he had gone mad, or was plotting a coup himself.

“Anderson told me that there had been developments,” he said. The message had been short – it could hardly be explicit when the enemy was monitoring the internet – but it had included important code groups that indicated good news. “Perhaps we will be able to get some real proof for you.”

 

Chapter Thirty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Do the hybrids have human loyalties? We don't know, but why should they not feel some connection to the human race?
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Virginia, USA

“We’re running out of places to meet,” Jon observed, as they took their seats around the table. “Where will we go next?”

David shrugged. The building they had occupied served as a FEMA centre during peacetime, although by arrangement with the Marine Corps the Marines were allowed to use it for their own activities when FEMA didn't need the building. General Nicolas had told FEMA that the Marines would be using it for a few weeks and transferred the keys and access codes to David, warning him to be careful. A FEMA inspector might turn up at any moment.

The building itself was remarkable, one of the secret command and control centres – and hospitals – that had been scattered around the country in classified locations. David had discovered, in a couple of days of exploration, that FEMA – anticipating a nuclear strike or worse – had created a system of shadow government that would be able to take over when – if – something went badly wrong and knocked the civilian government out of commission. The library, in the lower levels of the underground bunker system, contained contingency plans for nuclear strikes and saving what they could of the country. They made depressing reading. The handful of hospital rooms – better equipped than many deployed medical facilities in Afghanistan – had been intended for more than just medical care and rebuilding a shattered healthcare system. They had been intended for research into the long-term effects of radiation. Merely seeing the building made David wonder if Majestic had a similar base, where they kept the remains of the crashed Roswell ship, or if the Greys had reclaimed the ship after they’d subverted Majestic There was no way to know.

He looked around the table and smiled to himself. They’d become a military unit in all, but name, although he knew better than to think they were ready for action as an integrated unit. Charlie Sheen had been helpful in locating members of the Army of Northern Virginia who could be recruited into the counter-conspiracy, while Anderson had been able to recruit additional scientists from the classified community. Not all of the research was taking place at the FEMA building – not when they might have to leave in a hurry, or the aliens might descend on the base from high above – but Anderson had based his main research effort in one of the research labs below the surface. He’d claimed that they were quite comprehensive, although that hadn’t stopped him bringing in a shitload of new equipment and weapons and putting them on Nicolas’s tab. David didn't want to imagine the General’s reaction when he discovered what Anderson had done. At this rate, his discretionary funds were going to take a sharp beating – and God help them if the inspectors caught up with them before they could prove that the aliens truly existed.

“If I could have your attention please,” he said. He’d never been one for long speeches. “I think we need to decide what to do next. Thomas, if you would...?”

Anderson nodded as all eyes turned to him. “My team – including two of the most capable doctors in the United States – have been studying the live hybrid that joined us four days ago,” he said. “We have uncovered a number of interesting details that will allow us to understand their nature and precisely how the Greys intend to use them against us. I’m afraid it’s very bad news.”

He coughed. “I’ll stick to layman’s terms, for the benefit of those of you without a formal medical education. What we’re looking at is a genetically-modified human with some alien compounds in their blood. Sven is actually superhuman by most definitions of the term. He seems to remain permanently in shape – regardless of his exercise and lack thereof – and his immune system is going like a reactor. I’m pretty sure that the AIDS virus would have no effect on him. His eyesight is considerably more capable than the average human and his ears and nose are very sharp. He’s stronger and quicker than the average military recruit and – at least according to him – he has no formal military training. I don't think I want to meet one of them who went through SEAL training...

“It’s harder to judge his intelligence; frankly, most IQ tests are pieces of **** anyway, while many of the other tests for children were designed by social scientists interested in proving their theories rather than finding out the truth. What I have found out, however, is alarming. He should have a genius-level human intellect – or I think he would have had one, if he had been allowed to develop normally, rather than being quickened by the Greys. I think that, chronologically, he’s only nine years old. His life experience, also, is limited. He planned to escape the alien ship with his lover, but lacked the experience to know what to do next. His grasp of life on Earth is very weak. For other traits...he has a perfect memory and remarkable linguistic skills. One of my assistants has been trying to teach him Spanish. He’s learning at astonishing speed.

“However, his intelligence is clearly also unstable. When he focuses on something, he brings to bear the power of a considerable intellect. When his mind wanders, he becomes almost childlike, with a child’s whims and desires. For example, he knows – intellectually – that Sharon Mack was effectively forced to sleep with him, but emotionally he believes that he is in love with her and she is in love with him. He has a total mental block-out on the subject of her husband and children. Indeed, I believe the Greys were quite keen that he should knock Sharon up. I think they wanted to see if humans and hybrids can breed together.”

Crisco coughed. “And can they?”

“I’m not sure,” Anderson admitted. “We took sperm samples and analysed them. It is possible – we’re right at the limits of known science, so we don’t know for sure – that the hybrid genes would be dominant in any mating. There wouldn't be a child who would be a quarter alien – there would just be another hybrid. Where this actually leads is interesting, and quite worrying. Assuming that they manage to fix the mental stability problem and a couple of other issues, the hybrids will rapidly take over the planet even without an armed invasion. The average human simply won’t be able to complete.”

“****,” Jon said. “Are you saying that it’s hopeless?”

“Not yet,” Anderson said. “There are a number of other points worth considering. The first one is that we are uncertain of the purpose of the alien DNA within Sven’s body, but it seems likely that it allows for some kind of telepathy between hybrids, as well as a link to the Greys themselves. One very real possibility is that the Greys, who are clearly a dying race, will effectively download themselves into the hybrids and take over their bodies. Many of the hybrids out there may be unaware of the truth behind their parentage and won’t know what’s happening until it's too late to resist, if resistance is even possible.”

“I doubt it,” Gaby said. “I wouldn't change my body if someone offered me the chance...”

“They’re aliens,” Anderson said. “Their way of thinking is clearly very different to our own. Just because we wouldn't do it – and I’m not sure that the entire human race would refuse the chance at immortality for moralistic concerns – doesn't mean that they wouldn't do it. We might be facing the concept of a handful of minds in thousands of bodies, with each new birth merely adding another body to the hive mind. Or perhaps we could be barking right up the wrong tree.

“The second issue of concern is the implants within his body. There is a small implant within his head – just under the top of his skull – that appears to have somehow extended itself right into his brain. I do not believe that removing it is remotely possible without killing him in the process as our tools are far too imprecise for the task. If we really are dealing with people who have been implanted with controlling implants...euthanasia may be the only logical solution.”

“You’re talking about killing our people,” Jon said, flatly. “I won’t...”

“Don't you understand?” Howard demanded. The former Majestic officer had been listening in sullen silence, clearly resenting being dragged away from his work. “They’re not our people anymore! Forget who they were, forget that they might have once been your comrades; as soon as they were implanted they became alien slaves, trapped in living death. They’ll be grateful to be freed through death...”

There was a brief and angry uproar, which was quelled by David banging his fist against the table. “We can argue about the precise method of dealing with implanted people later,” he said. “Can we detect brain implants?”

Anderson frowned. “Yes and no,” he said. “We can detect implants like the one inserted into Sven, but it doesn't actually seem to be controlling him. If the controlling implants are different, it may be impossible to detect them without putting them through a very precise scan – if that. I doubt we could do it under field conditions. Parts of the implant are barely detectable as it is.

“Rather more worryingly, he has a pair of implanted weapons inserted into his hands and a handful of other augmentations that I have been unable to identify,” he continued. “One of the weapons is effectively a sonic disruptor; the other is a laser system capable of maiming or killing a human target. Both weapons would be effectively undetectable unless the hybrid was passed through a complete check – and again, we couldn't do it in the field.”

He shrugged. “Unless we find some way to stop them,” he concluded, “Sven is the future of the human race.”

David allowed a small amount of minor chatter before tapping the table again. “General Nicolas has made it quite clear,” he said. “We are running out of time. If the aliens are willing to bump off eight Marines just to cover their tracks, they’re clearly gearing up for something big. We need definite proof and we need to take it to the President.”

Howard snorted. “You expect much from a politician, boy?” He demanded. “Even the Presidents who were fully briefed on Majestic preferred to keep us at arm’s length and ignore us as much as possible. How do you think that Short’s controllers got away with it anyway?”

“We would have definite proof to show him,” David said. “We need to find a way to get that proof.”

“And then get it to the President,” Jon agreed. “And that raises another spectre. What if the President is already under alien control?”

There was a brief, horrified pause. David could understand their control. Almost everyone in the room had served in the military, which meant that they recognised the President as their commander-in-chief. He knew that some Presidents hadn't been remotely worthy of the office, or had proven complete fools when it came to military operations, but even so...they had been the President! Taking action against the President’s express orders would be difficult, perhaps impossible. The alien-controlled President could order the military to round them up and the soldiers, not knowing that the President was no longer his own man, would follow orders.

“I doubt it,” Crisco said. He shrugged at their expressions. “Look, I don’t think much of Clark as a President. The man doesn't have the stones for high stakes poker and he’s sitting in the most powerful seat in the world. But then...if Clark had been under their control, why not really put the boot in when they raided the farm? Why not have the President declare martial law and send in the military to help hunt us down?”

David followed his logic. The political ****-storm caused by the raid on the farm hadn't abated, even though the mainstream media was trying hard to brand the Clan as run by the Forces of Evil. The Governor of West Virginia, a possible candidate for the Presidency in the next election, had been turning it into a major issue, demanding explanations from the federal government that the federal government – not having any idea of what was going on either – had been unable to provide. The state had effectively banned ATF from operating within state territory without permission from the Governor – no one was even sure if that was legal or not – and several other states had followed suit. People were stockpiling guns all over the nation as crazy rumours spread everywhere. No one seemed to have grasped the truth.

“I see your point,” he said. “You think that the President is still his own man?”

“I think so,” Crisco said. “But then...that leads to another problem. How do we know that the President’s staff – someone close to him - is not being controlled by the aliens?”

David looked down at his hands. “****ed if I know,” he said. He looked up again. “We need proof, ladies and gentlemen. How can we get that proof?”

“We need a live alien,” Jon said. He looked over at his brother. “We need to set a second ambush for a UFO. Have the abductions restarted?”

“No,” William said, flatly. He shook his head slowly. “The problem with abduction reports is that the aliens cover their tracks very well and the degree of actual recall varies from person to person. The abductions may have restarted and the abductee may simply not recall the abduction and therefore not alert the researcher. Or we may have scared them enough to convince them to discontinue the program for the moment. Losing a craft had to hurt.”

David scowled. “So we cannot guarantee taking an alien craft,” he muttered. “****.”

“What about Short?” Crisco asked. He tapped the sheaf of papers that comprised the Marine CPD report, passed on by General Nicolas. “The idiot has hardly altered his routine even after his bodyguards killed the Marines – he may not even know that they were Marines. We could swoop down on him, take out the bodyguards and kidnap him, easily. And once we had him...”

“The implants in his head would kill him, or bring the aliens down on our heads,” Howard grunted. “We wouldn't have any hope of extracting information from him. Either the aliens control him directly or his conscious mind wouldn't have any idea what was going on.”

Jon frowned. “Did they know that they killed a bunch of jarheads?”

David bit down on the hot flash of anger that threatened to overcome him. “Good point,” he said, quietly. “They weren't carrying any identification, nothing that could be used to track them down – that would have been against regulations. They wouldn't even have had a tattoo on their bodies or anything else and their weapons would have been easy to obtain in the underground. The equipment might be a bit of a giveaway though; it was military issue...”

He shrugged. “Why? What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Jon admitted. “That’s the problem with ideas. They only come a bit at a time.”

“And they stripped the warehouse before the other Marines could search it,” Crisco added. “They clearly knew that something was up, even if it was just a bunch of criminals casing the joint before raiding it. They may not have drawn a link between Short’s presence and that of the Marines...”

“You’re all missing the obvious,” Gaby said, from where she was examining her nails. “We don’t want to go where the aliens are – because we don’t know where they are, do we? We want them to come to us.”

“Quite,” Jon agreed, dryly. “And do you have an idea of how we could get them to come to us?”

Gaby smiled, brightly. “If everything Tom was telling us about the over-handsome surfer dude down in the hospital was true,” she said, “don’t you think they’d want him back?”

David blinked. “You’re suggesting that we use Sven as bait?”

“Exactly,” Gaby said. “We take him somewhere isolated in the secure van, set up the weapons and then have him transmit a signal, calling for rescue. The old geezer” – she winked at Howard, who ignored it – “said that they weren't a very imaginative race. They might not realise that Sven is helping us...”

“Without Sven,” Jon pointed out, mildly, “Sharon would not have escaped.”

“And he might have changed his mind,” Gaby said. She shrugged, in a manner that drew male eyes to her breasts. “Do any of you have a better idea?”

***​

Jon watched through the one-way glass as Sharon talked to Sven, her voice clearly audible through the microphones emplaced within the secure room. It suggested to Jon that someone had been watching too many zombie movies; Sven, without his weapons, would have some problems breaking out. The laser, on the other hand, could probably cut through the walls without trouble, at which point the floodgates would open and gas would be pumped into the cell. Jon suspected that the capture gas – developed for use in Afghanistan – wouldn’t be entirely effective. Sven’s odd immune system would probably deal with it.

“Handsome, isn't he?”

“Bite your tongue,” Jon said, dryly. He had to admit that his brother was right. Sven was handsome, handsome enough to make Jon wish he’d met him in a gay singles bar. In fact, if he’d had the confidence and experience to go with the good looks and build, he would have cut a swath through both male and female admirers. “If this works...we’ll have a live alien. And if it fails, we could all die.”

“I don’t care about the risk any longer,” William said. “I just want my wife and daughter back, whatever the cost.”

Jon took his head. “Whatever it takes,” he promised, “we will do it.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The aliens don’t cope well with surprises. When threatened by an abductee – something that is hard to do, as the aliens normally maintain good control over their victims – they tend to back off and regroup later. They never leave permanently.
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Virginia, USA

“Do you think that this is actually going to work?”

Jon shrugged. It had taken four days to pick a location for the ambush and then move the secure trucks and equipment into position. They’d picked a camping site for hikers heading up into the mountains, a site that could be taken over by a large party if they were willing to pay enough money. David’s accounts were either tapped out or frozen, but some adroit computer hacking had managed to free up enough money to pay for everything they needed. It saved dipping into their reserve funds.

“It should, Luis,” he said. Crisco frowned as he paced around the firing position. They’d used their combined experience from Afghanistan and Iraq to create a landing position that seemed harmless, yet would actually allow them to catch the alien craft in a deadly crossfire from a dozen firing positions. If a single Stinger had brought down an alien craft once before, there was no reason to believe that they couldn't repeat the feat – apart from the fact the aliens would probably have learned from the experience. They had laser weapons and might be able to shoot the missile down in flight.

Crisco scowled. “And if it doesn't?”

“We’ll have to think of something else,” Jon said. “There’s too much at stake to fail now.”

He looked over towards the handful of parked trucks. One of them, rigged to prevent any transmission from escaping the interior, held an impatient Sven. Sharon had made all kinds of promises to convince him to help the team, but he hadn’t been willing to wait long before he started demanding to be allowed to return to Sharon. It was like dealing with an oversized kid and Jon was privately worried about what he might do in a temper tantrum. What if Sven took it into his head to betray the ambush? It couldn’t be allowed.

“Check the firing positions,” he ordered, finally. “And then get into your suit.”

Crisco groaned, but obeyed. The camouflage suits were the latest piece of American know-how to be deployed into the field, suits that concealed the wearer against everything from the mark-one eyeball to the most advanced infrared scan for heat signatures. On paper, they looked ideal; in the field, they were swelteringly hot. Jon had worn his when they’d held a drill the previous day and ended up feeling as if he'd been bathing in his own sweat. It hadn’t been a pleasant time. He took a final look around the campsite and allowed himself a moment of relief. There were two reasons to pick the location; there were no civilians around who might be caught up in the fighting, and the sound of gunshots would pass largely unnoticed. Or so he hoped. The way their luck had been going lately, a bunch of boy scouts would probably blunder into the midst of the fighting and get killed in the crossfire.

“All set, boss,” Crisco said. “They’re ready to go.”

Jon keyed his radio. “This is last call,” he said. “Sound off, and then go quiet until the fun begins. I say again, go quiet.”

He listened to the responses, sighed in relief as everyone signed in, and then walked over to the shielded truck. The aliens probably watched for suspicious radio signals coming from their target location and it would be a shame to blow the ambush because of a chance broadcast. There was no way to know what communications and surveillance capability the aliens actually possessed, but the USAF had developed some quite remarkable skills in that field and Jon had been uncomfortably paranoid when designing his trap. It hadn’t been that long since an attempted helicopter insertion of Delta Force commandoes in Afghanistan had narrowly escaped extermination after the Taliban set up an ambush and opened fire when the helicopter tried to land. If one of the insurgents had held his fire a few minutes longer, there would have been a slaughter.

“Come on out,” he said, pulling at Sven’s hand. Up close, there was something oddly alluring about the hybrid, a sense of musk and raw sex that almost made Jon’s head spin. Anderson had been right, he realised, even if he hadn't appreciated how pheromones and the human body could interact. The hybrids were almost a textbook case of the master race. “It's time to start broadcasting.”

They’d worked out a cover story for Sven, although there was no way to know if the aliens would buy it. The aliens would be told that Sharon had deserted him and Sven had made his way to an isolated point to call for rescue, showing – hopefully – the kind of common sense and good judgement that would suggest that the aliens rescue him rather than abandon him to his fate. William had warned that the aliens seemed to be completely inhuman with their hybrids, but he had been forced to concede that the aliens would probably want the body, if only to confirm that it hadn't fallen into enemy hands.

“I understand,” Sven said. “And then can we go back to Sharon?”

“Of course,” Jon assured him. He silently told his rebellious body to behave itself. The last thing he needed was to start acting like a kid developing his first crush. “You can start transmitting now.”

Sven cocked his head. Jon looked down at the terminal on his wrist as he walked back to the firing position. Sven’s implants didn't use something right out of science-fiction, thankfully; the technology seemed to be nothing more than a very UHF radio system. The best equipment they had been able to find hadn't been able to tap into the signal, but at least they'd known that it was there. It might be a workable way of finding unknown abductees or alien bases. Jamming the signal would be extremely difficult.

Jon waited, patiently, as Sven paced the campsite. He had to look as if he were completely alone, just in case the aliens decided to check first before they took the bait. Jon could feel the bright sunlight pouring down on the back of his neck – making the suit even more unbearable – as the minutes ticked away. His thoughts raced in circles. Were the aliens on their way, or had they decided to abandon Sven and leave him to his fate, the one he’d chosen on Earth. There was no way to know. The feeling of sunlight grew stronger, and then it faded away. Jon shifted slightly and looked up. The sunlight seemed to be distorted somehow, as if an incredibly powerful gravity field was scattering it over the campsite, sending a shiver down his spine. The last two alien craft he'd seen had both operated in darkness. This one was active during the day – and effectively invisible to the naked eye.

He braced himself as the haze came closer. It was hard to look up at the craft as light kept flickering down and into his eyes, but it seemed to be being careful. He silently willed his team to remember their orders and hold fire until he gave the order as the craft slowly came to a dead stop, directly over the campsite. The haze seemed to shimmer and the alien craft – another black triangle – was suddenly there. It was larger than the craft they’d shot down in Kansas, large enough to worry him. If they shot it down, it would come down far too close for comfort.

Crisco poked him with one finger as the craft continued to hover. Up close, there was a faint sense of unreality surrounding the craft, as if its mere presence was an insult to the entire world. Jon covered his eyes and peered up into the maw of the dark triangle, barely aware of Crisco muttering a prayer in Spanish. He heard Sven cry out in sheer terror and start to run, just as a beam of brilliant light shone down from the craft, reaching out towards the ground. The light behaved oddly, almost as if it was being shone through mist...

“Get ready,” he hissed. The aliens were moving the light now, focusing it on Sven’s departing figure. Crisco picked up the Stinger in one smooth motion and targeted it on the alien craft. The whine of the Stinger’s launcher filled the air, followed by the change in tone that meant that it had locked onto its target. “Fire!”

Crisco pulled the trigger. There was a roar as the Stinger blasted out of its launcher and rose up towards the alien craft, which started to move to the south – too late. The missile struck directly on one of the points of the triangle, sending the craft heeling over the campsite. For a moment, Jon thought that the craft was certainly doomed, but then it started to recover. Flames – oddly tinted – were pouring out of the craft’s underside, yet it was still aloft. Without waiting for orders – they’d discussed that possible contingency when planning the operation – the second Stinger team fired their missile. The second missile slammed into the underside of the craft and it spun upwards. Jon thought – for a single horrified moment – that it had managed to escape, before it spun like a top and heeled over again, coming down in the nearby forest and impacting with a thunderous crash. It also created a new danger that had somehow passed unnoticed – fire. It was hot enough in the area anyway, even without the crashed ship. Jon froze for a split second – how could they put out the fire without revealing their presence to the local authorities – before pushing the issue aside and running towards the crashed UFO, rifle in hand.

His radio buzzed as movement erupted from the crashed ship. “They’re coming,” the spotter said. Seven tiny grey figures had emerged from the wreckage, their hands lifted in what looked like surrender. It wasn't; bolts of flickering light flashed from their grey hands and slammed into the main building. Whatever they were using, Jon realised in horror, was powerful; the entire building was rapidly and remorselessly blown to bits. “Sir...”

“Take them out,” Jon ordered. Both of the hidden machine guns had already been swinging around to cover the wreck. They opened fire in unison, pumping entire belts of hot lead towards the alien figures. Some of them were caught in the stream of bullets and literally ripped apart, others were able to avoid the fire and shoot back. A colossal explosion, so powerful that Jon feared another UFO had arrived to join the fighting, took out one of the machine gun nests. The other kept firing as the remainder of the team added their fire to the battle. The remaining aliens were rapidly wiped out, leaving their bodies lying on the hot ground. “Come on!”

David had tried to talk him out of leading the storming party himself, but Jon had reminded him that he'd been the only one to have forced his way into a crashed UFO. Up close, the heat was almost overpowering and flames were already licking from the craft’s underside. No, he realised as he peered in through a gash in the hull; the craft had turned upside down as it had fallen from the sky. Everything was badly skewed by the fall. His perceptions, normally so accurate, were confused. The craft was clearly leaking something into the air and it crossed his mind to wonder, as he pushed his way into the craft, just how Majestic intended to cover it up. A chemical spill, perhaps, or yet another claim of terrorist activity? The latter never got old these days.

The interior of the alien craft was badly damaged. Jon had seen the last crashed ship himself – and Sharon and Sven had tried to draw out the interior of the alien craft they’d seen – but he lost his bearings almost instantly. Parts of the craft had stood up surprisingly well to the impact, other parts had simply fallen apart. A twitching shape under a mass of computer equipment – or so Jon assumed it to be – turned out to be a small grey alien, seemingly on the verge of death. The body had been so badly damaged that Jon was surprised that it wasn't already dead. In fact, as he peered closer, he could see that the tiny alien had been heavily enhanced by cybernetic implants. It had been more machine than alien.

Help.

Jon’s head snapped up as he felt the mental call. After feeling it in Kansas, he knew how to differentiate it from his own thoughts. He couldn't have described how he knew, but somehow he could feel directions within the mental call, pulling him towards where the alien was lying. Jon followed them, holding his rifle at the ready, and stepped into a barren room. Even upside down, there was no discernable purpose to the room. The mental call came again and Jon stepped into a door that lay on the opposite side of the room. He stopped in astonishment as soon as he saw the aliens. One of them had been integrated into the craft – as if a human brain had been implanted into a fighter jet – while the other was sitting against the side of the room, studying him with black expressionless eyes. If it was injured, it showed no visible sign of injury, but Jon took no chances. He helped the alien to its feet and searched it roughly. Feeling its skin sent shivers down his spine. There was no sense of shape to the alien form, as if they had long since divested themselves of all such luxuries. The alien was a gross parody of a human being.

He looked over at the other alien, but it was clearly dead. Up close, he could see that the aliens had turned one of their people into a monster. They’d plucked out its eyeballs and replaced them with cables that seemed to rise up from the floor, using its brain to control their ship. He wondered, absurdly, if the alien had been a volunteer, before realising that the aliens probably didn't think in such terms. The abductees seemed to believe that they showed little human-like individuality. It reminded him of the Japanese before they’d lost the Second World War. The only value of an individual’s worth was how he could serve his Emperor.

“All right,” Jon said. He slung his rifle over his back and drew his pistol. “Can you understand me, you son of a bitch?”

The alien’s great head bowed slowly in what was a recognisable nod.

“Good,” Jon said. “You are our prisoner. If you behave yourself, you will be well-treated and returned to your people when the current unpleasantness is over. If you attempt to escape, to communicate with your fellows or interfere with our minds, you will be killed. Do you understand me?”

Yes, the alien sent.

It was on the tip of Jon’s tongue to order the alien to speak aloud, before realising that the alien’s tiny mouth couldn't form English words. The aliens had long since evolved past a spoken language. Human scientists had once between that as the human race evolved, the brain would get bigger and the remainder of the body would atrophy. It was easy to see, looking at the alien, why some believed that the aliens were actually humans from the future. The DNA proved them wrong, of course, much to Jon’s relief. He would have liked to believe that future humanity would be above kidnapping past humans for anal probing.

“Walk in front of me,” he ordered. “Do not do anything that would alarm me.”

The alien seemed to dance forward as it obeyed. Jon found himself looking at where the alien’s buttocks should have been and shivered when he realised that the alien had no discernable buttocks, or hips or thighs. The alien looked like a caricature of a fashion model. It dawned on him, suddenly, that he had been thinking of the alien as it; was it male or female? Or did it even matter to the aliens?

He keyed his radio quickly as they stepped out of the craft and into the open air. The alien seemed to recoil from the bright sunlight, or perhaps from the armed humans staring at it. It would have looked terrifying to an abductee, but in the bright sunlight...it wasn't really that scary. Jon ordered the trucks brought around and placed under the canopy as he marched his captive across the yard. One of the trucks would carry him and the alien to the secure base. The others would head off in different directions. The aliens, if they were watching from high above, would have problems tracking them down.

“Your new home,” he said, to the alien. It didn't bother to respond as it danced into the truck and stood at one end of the compartment. Jon wondered if the aliens preferred to stand, rather than sit down; perhaps it wasn't built for sitting. “We’ll be somewhere very safe soon.”

They’d made preparations, in the hopes of getting a live alien, but there had been no way to test them – until now. Jon looked at the alien’s expressionless face, wondering what it was thinking. It and its kind had taken humans from their houses, against their will, and experimented on them as part of a demented breeding program. Had it ever believed that it would fall into human hands? And, if so, was it expecting its captors to carry out experiments on its body? Or perhaps it was expecting rescue...

“Sorry,” Jon said, as the truck roared to life. “You’re with us now.”

The alien said nothing. It showed no signs of impatience or fear. It just waited.

 

Tomorrow is my birthday so lots of comments would be nice...

Chapter Thirty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The aliens control all aspects of contact between human and alien. It is unlikely that human viruses can infect the aliens (and vice versa), but we do not know for sure. If uncontrolled contact took place, the results could be...unfortunate.
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Virginia, USA

Quantico - formally Marine Corps Base Quantico - served as one of the most vital bases for the Marine Corps. As the site of the Marine Corps Officer Candidates School, the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group and – less pleasantly – the Marine Corps Brig – it was assured of good security, particularly since a string of unpleasant incidents at various American military bases. Marine combat teams had actually been redeployed to the base in recent days, although apart from a tiny handful of officers, no one knew why security had been tripled and the base sent into near-complete lockdown.

President David Clark disliked flying at the best of times. Marine One, the President’s personal helicopter, was the smoothest helicopter in the world, yet Clark had to fight to keep himself calm. He was never comfortable with military men, even though he found them refreshingly different from the political figures he had to work with to get anything done. As the helicopter touched down, he mentally reviewed what General Nicolas had told him. There was something in Quantico for the President’s eyes only, something that happened rarely, but often enough to make him realise that it could be serious. The last time he’d visited a military base under false pretences, it had been when a senior Taliban figure had come to try to talk peace.

The Marines outside the helicopter formed a protective circle around Marine One. At his request, they’d cancelled the formalities that would normally take place when a President visited a military base. Clark had always found them rather embarrassing. He hadn't done anything to receive such adulation. Indeed, he hadn't been expected to win the nomination, let alone the Presidency. His rivals, louder men more in touch with the realities of the era, hadn’t taken him seriously and had torpedoed their own campaigns. Clark, deep inside, suspected that he had won by default. He had sworn to do the best he could, with the vast powers of the Presidency, but he had come to realise that they were far more limited than an outsider could understand. The Presidency was a trap with few rewards and much punishment for failure. His predecessor had joked that no one truly appreciated a President until he had left office. Clark suspected that he was right.

“Mr President,” General Nicolas said, as the Marines saluted. “Welcome to Quantico.”

“Thank you, General,” Clark said. He hadn't gotten as far as he had in politics without learning to read people – and Nicolas was a deeply scared man, worried about something beyond his control. “It’s great to be here.”

They shared a look of mutual understanding and then the General nodded towards his Secret Service escorts. “I’m afraid that they’re not cleared for access to the secure zone,” he said. “Don’t worry; we've had the base in lockdown for the last four days and it is totally secure.”

“I understand,” Clark said. In truth, he would be delighted to ditch the Secret Servicemen for a few hours. Besides, what could happen to him in the heart of a Marine base? “Let's go.”

The Secret Service officers didn't take it calmly, but they reluctantly agreed to follow orders and wait with Marine One. The circle of Marines spread out as Nicolas led him towards a low blocky building, surrounded by armed Marines. Some of them, the President noted in astonishment, were carrying what looked like portable shoulder-launched surface to air missiles, as if they expected an aerial assault in the United States. They passed through security – an unusually long process – and into the innermost region of the building. Clark blinked as cold air wafted up from somewhere down below, realising that the building’s air conditioning was working overtime. What were they doing that had to be kept very cold – and covert?

“We originally set up this compound to house soldiers who might have been infected with biological weapons,” Nicolas explained. The Marines had melted away and they were alone, passing through doors that looked as if they had designed as airlocks. “If we had something new and deadly on our hands, we would have flown them here and set them up inside a sealed zone, where they could be studied without fear of exposing them to the world.”

Clark frowned. “Is that what we’re dealing with, General?” He asked. He’d been briefed on biological weapons when he’d taken office. It was around then that he’d realised the truth behind the Presidency. One wrong move and the result could be disastrous. “Someone is attacking us with biological weapons?”

“I wish it was that simple,” Nicolas said. They passed outside the final door. “I'm sorry to have to show you this, Mr President. It’s going to come as something of a shock.”

He pressed his hand against a biometric scanner and the door hissed open, revealing what looked like an observation chamber, illuminated with eerie red light. The President stepped forward, staring towards what was clearly a one-way mirror, peering into a sealed compartment. He stopped dead as he took in the figure standing within the compartment, gazing expressionlessly back at him. For a moment, his mind refused to accept what he was seeing. It was totally outside his worldview. His legs buckled and Nicolas caught him before he could hit the floor.

The creature – he knew, at a level that could not be denied, that it was not human – was impossible. It was inhumanly thin, as if someone had pulled skin over a skeleton, and the dark eyes...the President shivered as the remainder of the details sank into his head. The alien’s oversized head tilted to look at him and he started to stumble backwards. A stronger man than him would have had problems staring into that gaze. The creature was very far from human.

He started to speak and then forced himself to pause and lick his lips. “Can... Can it see us?”

“It shouldn't be able to peer through the glass,” Nicolas said. Clark was grateful for the dispassionate tone. His mind kept fumbling, unable to grasp what he was looking at. “On the other hand, it is definitely reacting to our presence – and to that of the others who come to study its body. Either it can see at wavelengths we can’t or it has some form of telepathic sensitivity to human presence.”

The alien stepped forward and held up one hand, pressing it against the glass. Clark fought down the urge to run as the soulless eyes caught his, as if the alien was staring deep into his very soul. There was a moment of timeless nothing, and then the alien stepped back, pacing back into the centre of the room and stopping there. The President felt his head spinning and was grateful when Nicolas helped him out of the room.

“I think we all need stiff drinks,” Nicolas said, calmly. “And then I will tell you everything.”

***​

Sitting in the base commander’s office, drinking a fairly good brand of Scotch, the President listened to the entire story from start to finish. Nicolas was good at explaining military matters to a layman, yet the story...the President wanted to deny that it was even possible. How could aliens have operated on Earth for so long, abducting humans and implanting them with controlling implants, without being detected? The President didn't even believe in aliens! A few hours ago, the entire concept would have been laughable. Now, he knew he’d seen a living alien, knew it at the core of his being. The aliens were real.

“Did...” He coughed and tried again. “Did they get me elected? Did they get me implanted?”

“We don’t think so,” Nicolas assured him. “The President gets the best medical care in America and routine brain-scans are part of that medical care. If you’d been implanted, they would have risked detection ahead of time – the same goes for most of your Cabinet, I think. We can’t rule out that they may have implanted people serving in the White House, close to you, but we’re fairly sure that you’re safe.”

“Thank you,” Clark said, slowly. He stared down at the glass of alcohol, wondering what it would be like to climb into it and never come out. General – and later President – Grant had done just that, leaving his Presidency as one of the less illustrious terms in history. “And they're inserting their own people into the country, into the world? Why?”

“Everyone agrees that they’re launching an invasion,” Nicolas said. “It’s an odd invasion – they’re not flying giant saucers over the White House and blowing it to bits with laser beams - but they’re just as deadly. Hell, they may be more deadly. We don’t know who we can trust. Any attempt to organise a resistance will run into the problem of locating implanted personnel and ah, removing them from positions of power.”

Clark shook his head slowly, still wanting to take refuge in disbelief. “And if they’re doing this,” he concluded, “what do they want?”

“Us,” Nicolas said, flatly. “Mr President, we have to take action...”

“I want to talk to the alien,” Clark said. “I need to speak to him, to see if we can work out a diplomatic solution...”

Nicolas blinked. “Mr President, with all due respect, we have seen nothing that suggests that they are interested in talking peace,” he said. “They abduct our citizens and perform experiments on them while they are helpless. They implant our people and insert them into positions of power. They bend our society to serve them...I don't think they see us as equals.”

“But we have to try,” the President said. “If you’ve shot down two of their craft, they might be willing to listen to reason.”

“Or say whatever you want to hear in order to get us to let down our guard,” Nicolas countered. “The aliens have been laying their plans for generations. They’re not going to be deterred by a pair of lost ships...”

Clark stood up. “General, I understand your concerns,” he said, “and we will take all necessary measures to deal with the threat. However, we have to see if we can work out a diplomatic solution before the war comes out into the open. Perhaps we can negotiate some compromise. For the sake of the American people, if no one else...”

Nicolas, to his credit, recognised an order when he heard one. “Very well, Mr President,” he said. “Please, be very careful. The aliens are dangerous.”

***​

There was a dull thump in the background as the outer hatch of the airlock closed behind him, followed by a series of clacks as the airlock sealed. He was totally alone in the chamber, waiting for the inner door to swing open. Clark braced himself, drawing on the experience he’d gained from political debates and diplomatic meetings, as the second airlock started to hiss open. He would soon be the first man since Truman to attempt to open diplomatic negotiations with an alien race.

He hadn't lied to Nicolas when he’d told him that he was concerned about the American people. They were his first concern, whatever else happened; the American people had to be protected. The President couldn't afford to give into anger or hatred – or mad impulses – for fear of what would happen if he lost control. Years ago, he’d realised that the reason his predecessors had always seemed so ineffectual had been because they were terrified of the consequences of raising the stakes too high. What would have happened, he wondered, if the Americans had pushed the Russians too hard during the Cold War? There might have been a nuclear holocaust. The country itself might have been destroyed.

The inner airlock swung open and the President stepped into the sealed room. The alien stood there, right in the centre of the room, waiting for him. There had been no advance warning, but somehow the President couldn't shake the feeling that the alien had known that he was coming. Perhaps the experts were right and the aliens did possess a form of telepathy, one that allowed them to read human minds. It would be a fantastic advantage in any diplomatic negotiations. They'd know exactly what cards their human opponents held in any discussion.

“Greetings,” the President said. The alien tilted its great head in silent acknowledgement. “I am David Clark, President of the United States of America.”

He waited, but the alien seemed to have nothing to say. “We know about your presence on our planet now,” he pressed, continuing the offensive. “Our weapons have shot down two of your ships. We can hurt you; perhaps stop you from abducting our citizens and inserting your hybrids into our society. Don’t you think it’s time we started to talk?”

There was a long pause. The alien’s mouth remained motionless, but the President heard its voice in his head. It was an unpleasant sensation, as if someone was dripping words tinged with poison into his skull. His head swam unpleasantly as the alien pulled back. He felt as if he was about to faint, just for a moment.

There is nothing to talk about, the alien sent. We do not speak with you.

“You have spoken with me,” the President said, recovering. He was a diplomat, after all, and there was nothing that could not be solved with diplomacy. The right words – finding common ground and room for compromise – could prevent war and all the death and destruction it brought in its wake. He knew about leaders who refused to talk, who believed that they somehow gained prestige by refusing to talk to the United States, but they knew that it was nonsense. They had more to gain by talking. “Whatever you want, we can supply it and perhaps help save your race...”

You do not understand, the alien said. There was no emotion in its mental voice, no sense of amusement or disdain, hatred or contempt. Somehow, that made it worse. The universe is strict. The strong survive; the weak perish. The sole purpose of life is to survive and evolve so it can spread through the universe and become immortal. Your race has chosen to turn its back on the stars, to remain in your cradle and await inevitable extinction when your star expands; our race has chosen to take the stars and become immortal. What are you to us?

“You told Truman that you were a dying race,” the President said. “We could help save you...”

Your race and ours could not coexist as equals, the alien sent. Your inherent nature is your weakness. Your failure to adapt to the universe as it really is – rather than how you wish it to be – ensures that you will never accept your role in the universe. Your people have ceded themselves to the superior race. You have failed to develop the power and will to claim a superior role within the universe. Instead, you choose to destroy the foundations of your world, take refuge in lies and falsehoods about a supreme entity that will intercede in your favour and ensure your own destruction. The only thing that matters in the universe is survival. Your failure to ensure your own survival marks you as an inferior race...

The President clutched his head as new sparks of pain blasted through his skull. “What...” He broke off in agony. “What are you going to do to us?”

Your world is already ours, the alien said. Your country has been taken before you ever realised that there was a threat. We will complete the program and claim your world for our own. Resistance is futile. We control your world.

There was no sense of irony in the mental voice. Your society will be restructured along more rational principles. Your genetic resources will be used to reinvigorate our society and allow us to reach new heights of greatness. Your race will eventually die out, replaced by a far superior culture that will combine the wild strength of your genetic heritage with the legacy of our own kind. You believe that you have harmed us. We have not even begun to show you our power.

The President found himself sitting on the floor with no clear memory of how he’d gotten there. “We will fight,” he insisted. The irony of a lifelong pacifist declaring that there would be no surrender wasn’t lost on him, but the alien let it pass. “We can wreak this world before we let you have it and destroy us...”

Your threat is empty, the alien said. Your society is already under our control.

***​

“You heard all that?”

“Yes, Mr President,” Nicolas said. The General looked shaken. “The entire building heard it in their heads.”

The President wiped sweat off his brow. “Can it call for help?”

“Nothing has attacked the base yet,” Nicolas said. The President snorted. That wasn't quite an answer. If the aliens knew where their comrade was, they might be biding their time, or a rescue mission might be underway already. There would be no way to know until the attack began. “Mr President, we need to take action now.”

The President shivered. What if the alien was right? He didn't want to believe the mental voice, but he had a feeling that the concept of deliberate lying was unknown to the aliens. What if there was nothing left, apart from blowing up the Earth to prevent the aliens claiming it?

“But what can we do?” He asked. It came out as a plaintive cry for help. “They control everything!”

“Not everything,” Nicolas said. He grinned, toothily. “Let me tell you about a little thing I call Operation Clean Sweep.”

 

Another great chapter Chris. Happy birthday.

 

Chapter Thirty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Of course, ever since The X-Files, UFO conspiracy theories have included the concept of a cigarette-smoking man who covers up the existence of alien life. Such claims seem to have very little basis in reality.
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Washington DC, USA

“I’ve got to move here after I retire,” Crisco said, as the team prepared itself for action. “I could live in one of these houses...”

Jon rolled his eyes. After they’d made their new base at Quantico, he’d had a chance to chat with a few of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, who had been amused to discover that they were suddenly promoted to SPECOPS personnel. Although few outside the government and military realised it, the HRT was far more than just a hostage rescue term; they trained regularly with Delta Force and, unlike most military units, had no constitutional barriers to operating on American soil without permission. Until Clean Sweep could clear all of the hybrids and implanted personnel out of the military, they had no choice, but to rely on the FBI. Given that the FBI had been hunting him, David and the remainder of the Clan, it wasn't something that filled him with joy.

But he had managed to spend some time comparing notes with the team leader and its liaison officer to the Hoover Building. Agent Evens – a leggy blonde who had so far proven resistant to Crisco’s charms – had told him that Artemis Short was spending well above his income, even if he did have a very wealthy family. In the normal run of things, such spending – including a house that reassembled an English country home – he would have almost certainly have attracted a spending audit by the Pentagon’s internal security force, if not the IRS. Majestic, of course, could ensure that no such investigation ever got underway.

“I just received a ping from the advance team,” he said. “The bastard is on his way. Remember, we have to take him alive.”

He scowled. The problem was that there was no way to know if a person was implanted, which meant that there would be absolute chaos if the aliens came into the open. No one would know if their senior officer was following orders from the President or the aliens – and that suggested that hundreds of military personnel would be killed through fratricide, killed by their own comrades under the impression that they were under alien control. There was only one person in the entire United States who had been confirmed to be implanted - Artemis Short. The plan – as part of the run-up to Operation Clean Sweep – was both simple and desperate. Short would be kidnapped, taken to the nearest secure hospital, and put through every test they could invent. Hopefully, they would be able to come up with a way to detect the implant before it was too late.

Jon glanced down at his watch as the team slipped into position. For whatever reason, Short hadn't altered his daily routine, although he did have a new team of bodyguards escorting him everywhere. The Marines following him had kept their distance from him, watching to see how he reacted to exposure. It looked as if the aliens didn't know that Short was exposed – either that, or they were using him as bait. Or perhaps they didn't care any longer. They had their hooks so deep into the military, intelligence and governmental institutions that Short had suddenly become expandable. Jon hoped that that wasn't the case. By taking out Short, it was just possible that they were throwing a spanner into the alien plans.

His earpiece buzzed. “They’re passing Point Fred now,” a voice said. Ned – a SEAL Jon barely knew – had insisted on naming the various streets, claiming that anyone monitoring radio communications in Washington wouldn't connect them to real locations. Jon had no idea if it worked against the aliens, but it hardly mattered. The target was barely ten minutes away and the team had to get ready to move. “Good luck.”

Jon nodded. This time, the Marine shadows would pull back, clearing the way for the ambushers to carry out their mission and then retreat. There would be a brief moment when Short would be out of everyone’s sight. The last time Jon had carried out what was effectively an assassination – while on assignment for the ANV – he’d had the entire area quartered by his own people. Now, in the midst of Washington, there were limits to what he could do. Quite apart from tipping off the aliens, there was the Washington PD to consider. A call for help from this area would not pass unnoticed.

“Action,” Crisco muttered. “Here they come, boss.”

Jon nodded and keyed his radio. “Team Alpha, fire as soon as the targets enter the engagement box,” he ordered. “Team Beta; stand by.”

Short’s bodyguards should have been registered in Washington, but no one had been able to identify them, which suggested that they were hybrid warriors. The Marines had been able to snap a few pictures of them without interference, something Jon hoped proved that they were humanoid rather than the tiny warrior Greys. Their tactics were odd; one group of bodyguards drove in a car in front of Short, while the others followed him in a second car. Short was alone in his car, apart from the driver. It was unlikely that he wasn't another bodyguard. The aliens wouldn't have allowed Short to continue to operate with minimal protection.

He braced himself as the lead car came closer. On the face of it, it was nothing more than a luxury car, as a wealthy young man would buy to impress his girlfriend. Jon knew better than to be fooled by surface appearances. Any close-protection team worth its salt would have rigged the car for maximum protection, including bulletproof glass, armour plating and murder holes for handguns and assault rifles. It would have daunted a random kidnapping team; Jon, however, had planned for that eventuality. Having access to the weapons dump at Quantico offered all kinds of possibilities...

The first Javelin was launched right at the lead car, followed rapidly by the second. It had actually been fired at too close a range for it to fly up and come down on the roof, but it hardly mattered. The Javelin was designed to take out tanks and the car – even an armoured car – could hardly stand up to it. The resulting blasts fried the bodyguards before they could hope to escape.

“Go,” Jon snapped, as the middle car stopped dead. Any bodyguard – any human bodyguard – would have been stunned by the sudden carnage. The hybrid was already drawing a concealed weapon and preparing to fire. “Take him out!”

Gaby fired twice from the rooftops, her shots – using special bullets – smashing through the bulletproof glass and punching a hole through the driver’s head. Jon was already moving, running towards the rear of the vehicle, as Short scrambled to escape. The elderly man – moving at a remarkable speed for a person who had to be in his nineties – dived out of the door and right into Jon’s arms. Before he could escape, Jon pressed the injector against his neck and held it there until Short sagged and collapsed to the road.

“Get the van up here,” Jon ordered. There was no way that the explosions would have gone unnoticed. The police were probably already on their way. He unhooked a grenade from his belt and threw it into Short’s vehicle. “Get him out of here.”

The remainder of the team was already dispersing along carefully-planned escape routes. By the time the police arrived, fifteen minutes later, there was nothing left, but three burned-out vehicles and a mystery.

***​

“Well done,” the President said, three hours afterwards. “Did they find anything?”

Doctor Rossini, the foremost American expert in man-machine integration, nodded. It had been sheer luck that he lived near Washington and a letter from the President – and an armed escort – had brought him to one of the covert clinics scattered around the city. Clark had had to reassure him that he hadn't been kidnapped by the military before he agreed to go to work.

“I found something very disturbing,” Rossini said. He was in his late forties, with hair starting to go white and a lined face. The President understood. He too had daughters who were growing into mature young women. “The subject...ah, the subject has a network of implants through his brain.”

Clark leaned forward. “He has a network of implants?”

“I’m afraid I shall have to resort to layman’s terms,” Rossini said, in tones that suggested that that would be a great hardship. “The implant has somehow spread through his brain and now – if you will pardon the analogy – is a web that interpenetrates with his brain. I do not know what kind of surgery could produce such a result. There would be no way to create such complete webbing without causing considerable damage to the brain.”

The President frowned. “Could the patient survive the experience?”

“I very much doubt it,” Rossini said. He sounded horrified at the very thought of attempting such a detestable experiment. “The foremost tools – the most subtle medical machines – that we have at our disposal could not perform such a task safely. The brain would be perforated in any number of ways. The result would be certain death – at the very least, the subject would suffer considerable brain damage.”

“I understand,” Clark said. Somehow, he had nursed a hope that the process could be reversed. He asked anyway, just to be sure. “Can you remove the webbing?”

“Certainly not,” Rossini said, shocked. “I fail to have made myself clear. The webbing effectively is part of the brain now. We cannot remove it without causing the patient to die horribly. I do not believe that any medical professional would be party to an attempt to remove the webbing.”

The President nodded impatiently. “Can you detect the webbing now you know what you are looking for?”

“Almost certainly,” Rossini said, firmly. “The problem, however, is that it took a number of scans to be certain that we were actually looking at something real. Scanning a person’s mind to ensure that they were not...infected with the webbing will take time.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” the President said. He held out his hand for Rossini to shake. “Agent Evens will take you to your quarters where you can rest.”

He waited for Rossini to be escorted out of the room and then he turned to Nicolas. “That’s good news, isn't it?”

“Maybe,” Nicolas said, pessimistically. “Howard claimed that Short was one of the first to be implanted – one of the first at Majestic, at any rate. They might have improved the design since then.”

The President followed his logic. “And what if some of the implanted victims are undetectable?”

Nicolas gave it to him straight. “In that case, Mr President, we are probably ****ed.”

Operation Clean Sweep had commenced two hours ago. Marines had been brought to Quantico from other Marine bases around the country and run through DNA screeners. The hybrids had been quietly separated from the remaining Marines, who had then been moved into Washington – under cover of a security drill – and transferred to the Marine barracks in Washington. A detachment of Marines had relieved the ones stationed at the White House and then proceeded to carry out a full security drill, isolating everyone who worked in the White House. They had been moved to a temporary holding camp outside Washington, where they would be held until their brains had been scanned for implants. Other teams – waving official clearance at everyone who even looked doubtful – had secured hospitals and medical centres throughout Washington. Their scanners would be used to hunt for implanted personnel, who would be restrained and transferred to a second holding centre.

The thought of how badly they were violating constitutional rights made Clark blanch. It was necessary, he knew, yet it would be difficult to defend when it finally reached the Supreme Court. Even if they succeeded, his Presidency would never survive the public’s wrath at election time...he laughed at himself silently, cursing his own weakness. If the aliens won, there would never be another election. He had never envisaged himself as the last President of the United States.

It still surprised him that the media hadn't picked up on it, or at least were keeping quiet about it. The blogs had noticed, all right, with speculation ranging from a military coup to an unannounced and unscheduled training exercise. The President had wanted to address the country at once, but Nicolas – and his other advisers – had urged him to remain silent, warning him that speaking to the country meant informing the aliens. The official line would remain ‘no comment’ until they had at least the hope of a solution. There was no other choice.

According to Howard, the military and government were infested with implanted humans and hybrids. The President had been urged to send Marines to the State Department and seal the building off before any of the unwilling traitors could escape, but Nicolas had urged him to hold off until the loyalty of the military could be confirmed. The thought of just how much chaos a single implanted military officer could cause was chilling. No American President, with the possible exception of Lincoln, had ever had to worry about the loyalty of his military before now. It was not a pleasant thought.

Nicolas listened to a brief report coming in through his earpiece, and then looked over at the President. “We’ve secured Andrews, Mr President,” he said. The President nodded, relieved. If the aliens had controlled the base and its personnel, the results would not have been pleasant. Andrews not only held the Air National Guard forces responsible for the defence of Washington, but also several heavy bomber wings preparing for another deployment to the Middle East. “I’m having additional units moved into the city now...”

The President scowled. There was no way that that would avoid causing comment. The Marines had an air defence unit at Quantico and that would be moved up to defend the city, at least until the loyalty of local National Guard forces was confirmed. If a single MANPAD had been able to bring down a small alien craft, the President had been assured, the Marine-operated mobile air defence units would be more than capable of defending Washington. Or so they hoped. It had also occurred to the planners that the aliens probably had more up their sleeves than they’d shown their human allies.

He shook his head and concentrated on remaining calm. Once his cabinet had been screened, he could bring them in on it and look for support. Hopefully, Congress and the Senate would also be clear – no, that was wishful thinking. Unlike the President, a Congressman could avoid federal medical checks – or have them carried out by their own clinics. The aliens probably had to control at least some clinics, if only to avoid risking exposure at the wrong time. A hybrid could pass for human, at least on the surface, but visiting a doctor was asking for detection.

“Don’t worry, Mr President,” Nicolas assured him. “We will round them all up before they can do great harm.”

***​

Major Edward Stalker – whose name had been judged suitable for a callsign, much to his private irritation – peered down from his F-22 Raptor towards Washington DC. Flying CAP missions over Washington had become an unfortunately commonplace experience since 9/11, but this time scuttlebutt suggested that it could be something far more important than a vague threat of terrorist attack. Nothing had been said – not officially – yet Edward had been able to draw his own conclusions from what hadn’t been said. Everything suggested that someone in a high place expected trouble in Washington.

He waved cheerfully to his wingman as the Raptor crisscrossed the sky in lazy circles, checking the live feed from the E-2 Sentry orbiting twenty-five kilometres to the south. The Raptor had an impressive – and highly classified - onboard sensor suite, but procedure was to follow the Sentry’s lead where possible. Edward had trained with the radar crews and admired their professionalism. They knew what they were doing.

His radio buzzed. “Stalker, this is Eye,” a voice said. “Be aware that we have an unidentified contact approaching Washington from the east. Contact does not have an authorised flight plan; I say again, contact does not have an authorised flight plan...

Edward smiled as the Raptor turned and headed east, over the ocean. The live feed from the Sentry was growing vaguer, as if the target had really been nothing more than a transient contact that had faded away within seconds. It wasn't uncommon. Radar wasn't always a precise science, but all contacts had to be investigated. And besides, flying the Raptor was just plain fun...

The radio cut out in a screech of static. Edward winced as the sound blasted into his ears, then cursed as he activated the Raptor’s onboard radar. No unidentified contact appeared on his radar screen. Puzzled, he keyed his radio again, only to be almost deafened by another squeal of static. They were being jammed! It was impossible, but what other explanation could there be? He saw his wingman from the canopy and tapped his helmet to indicate a communications failure. A moment later, his wingman did the same. Both Raptors were mute and deaf. A second later...

It was suddenly there, right in front of them. It was a massive black triangle, easily twice the size of the largest human-built aircraft in existence, rumbling towards them with no concern for the laws of physics. Edward stared in disbelief, unable to believe what he was seeing, and then reached for his trigger. It was a move he was not destined to complete. There was a bright flash of light and the aircraft disintegrated around him.

***​

“That’s odd,” Nicolas said. Clark looked up in concern. “I just lost the link to...”

The entire building shook violently, just before the deafening sound of a nearby explosion blasted through the windows. A second later, the power failed completely.

 

Happy Spawn day... thanks for your writing....

 

OK, I got my fix! thanks another great one. Enjoying the stories.

HAPPY B-DAY...I would sing, but this is the internet....so just imagine that 85 year old lady who smokes 2 packs a day and can't hold a tune is singing to you.

 

Chapter Thirty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Why don’t the aliens take over the world? Given what we know about their technology, they would not find it a hard task.
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Cheyenne Mountain, USA

Specialist Mary MacDougal felt the pressure in her head ease off slightly as she walked through the security checkpoints that led into the innermost core of the mountain fortress. The headaches had become more and more frequent in recent months, although she had never been able to report them to the command and control centre’s medical staff. She knew, deep inside, the cause of the headaches, but she also knew that she would never be able to tell anyone else. No one who saw her would see her as anything other than an Air Force Specialist and a remarkably pretty young woman with brown hair and a charming smile. Indeed, to all intents and purposes, Mary was normal, apart from the presence of the headaches. When they came, she was no longer entirely herself.

And when the headaches began, she remembered something that had been buried down at the back of her mind, hidden from recollection. It had only been six years ago that she – and a number of other girls from her training class – had been given a week’s leave at a resort up in the mountains, seemingly as a team-building exercise. They’d gone climbing in the day, swum in crystal-clear water and chatted up the local talent, until the fourth night. On the fourth night, her entire world had changed. They had come.

She still recalled the blinding light that had poured into the rooms, holding them immobile until the little grey creatures had arrived, heading the trainees into the open air and up into a craft that was hovering over the resort. Mary, like the others, had been utterly unable to resist as the aliens took samples from her body, and then pressed something against her head. There had been a brief spark of pain – so intense that she’d blacked out – and when she'd awoken in her bed she had recalled nothing of the incident. No one else spoke of that day; indeed, everything had been normal, until the day she’d come to choose her career path in the Air Force. She had been pushed into becoming a radar specialist and she had been remarkably good, starting with a tour on a mobile SAM battery in Iraq and ending up in Cheyenne Mountain. It had never occurred to her that someone was helping her career, manipulating events to ensure that she received certain specific postings, for the very simple reason that she could think of no one who could do such a thing. She didn't have an uncle in a high place, or a horny lover intent on promoting her as a reward for sexual favours; she genuinely believed that she deserved her posting. It was a reward for good service.

At one time, after the end of the Cold War, the famous mountain fortress had been stepped down to inactive service, with a nearby USAF base taking over its duties. 9/11 – and a resurgent Russian threat – had led to the mountain being quietly reactivated and even enhanced, with more command and control responsibilities being passed into the hands of the people on the base. Mary had even heard rumours that someone high up was preparing for an unspecified disaster, ensuring that civil law enforcement agencies and FEMA were allowed to set up subordinate command and control centres in the base. She knew very little officially – asking questions was discouraged and few outsiders had a chance to talk – but she’d seen enough to be convinced that they were right.

She smiled at the security guard as her body moved into the final checkpoint, screaming on the inside. Surely the Sergeant – a man who had flirted with her before – would notice that something was wrong. Instead, he merely winked at her as she pressed her hand against the scanner, which checked her fingerprints and verified her identity again. The secondary check – a retina and iris scan – was even harder to fool. It was theoretically possible – if very difficult – to fool a fingerprint scanner, but no one had yet managed to fool a retina check. Mary screamed inside as the final airlock – designed to survive a nuclear blast even within the compound – clicked open and she stepped into the command centre. As always, even when her mind was not entirely her own, it took her breath away.

NORAD’s principle responsibility was monitoring United States airspace and Low Earth Orbit. Every day, Specialists like Mary monitored the flight paths of thousands of aircraft around the globe, watching through a network of ground and air-based radar stations, or looking down from a network of reconnaissance satellites as civilian and military aircraft went about their business. The Russians, Chinese and Iranians would have freaked if they had realised just how capable the network of sensors actually was, or just how badly their system leaked. The United States could track their military aircraft wherever they went, even the relative handful of stealth designs that the Russians and Chinese were finally putting into active service.

As part of that responsibility, NORAD also monitored Low Earth Orbit. Few civilians appreciated just how much space junk – from pieces from old boosters to gloves and tools from the ISS – orbited the planet Earth, or just how much danger it could pose to human space endeavours. Worse, there was always the danger that a piece of incoming space junk could be mistaken for an incoming missile – or that an incoming missile could be mistaken for a piece of junk. With several rogue states launching their own ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Continental United States, NORAD’s supervisors had been very insistent that all pieces of space debris had to be monitored and tracked to ensure that they didn't pose a danger. In theory, there was nothing in orbit that could escape detection and, once detected, a network of telescopes would lock onto the newcomer and attempt to identify it.

Mary – deep inside her mind – knew better. Sometimes, NORAD tracked targets that seemed to perform impossible manoeuvres in orbit, movements that were right out of science-fiction. The computers had been programmed to ignore the impossible – and such targets were meant to be wiped from the radar screen – but sometimes one of them blinked through to alert the operators. When that happened, Mary knew, an alert should be sounded and the full tracking resources of the United States brought to bear on the unknown. And yet, such targets were never reported. Whenever one got through the filters, Mary or one of her comrades would wipe it from the system as if it had never existed. Deep inside, Mary knew what she was doing, but she could do nothing to stop herself. She only even recalled it when her unseen masters called her to duty.

She exchanged salutes with the Specialist she was replacing and listened as he updated her on events over the United States. The entire complex was under a low-level alert after the events in Kansas – where several heads had rolled over the failure to provide advance warning of the crashing Chinese satellite – and everyone was on edge. Extra security personnel had been brought into the complex and were blundering around, making everyone feel miserable. Mary checked the day log, ensured that no unidentified targets had made it through the filter, and settled back to wait. She had no idea what she was waiting for, but she knew it was coming. Her hands operated her console remotely, while deep inside her mind screamed. The pressure inside her head was growing stronger. Resistance was not only futile, but inconceivable.

She sat up suddenly as the pain in her head suddenly cleared. Her hands moved forward and touched her console, keying in a security code that was known only to her and a few others. It would have alarmed her superiors if they'd known that the code existed, for it granted her administrator rights that overrode anyone who did not already know the codes. Once the codes were inserted into the computers, she brought up the master network, the system that held the United States Integrated Air Defence System together. It did far more than just collate radar contacts and update local air defence forces. It linked American forces into a single unit, wherever they were. It was a quantum leap forward from anything possessed by the rest of the world.

With a single command, linked right into the network, a long-established contingency plan was put into effect. All over the country, local radar stations and defence facilities found that they had been slaved to NORAD. Satellite communications systems and ground-based telecommunications facilities were subverted. Moments later, the entire system reset itself. Anyone who hadn’t inserted the right codes was summarily locked out of the system. The entire defence network had ground to a halt. The United States was defenceless.

Mary sat back in her chair and relaxed, the headache slowly fading away. It was too late for anyone – now – to do anything. Even as other operators cursed and shouted in alarm, she smiled, although part of her was still screaming in horror at what she’d become. Her masters would be here soon and then she would know happiness forevermore.

***​

“Internal alert, internal alert; this is not a drill! I say again, this is not a drill!”

Sergeant Ben Chu looked up in surprise. He had always believed that his position – guarding the airlocks into the nerve centre of the base – was nothing more than misplaced paranoia. No one got into NORAD without going through an extensive – and uncomfortable – set of identity checks and searches and there was no reason to believe that an armed force could get deep into the base without being challenged. They’d have to dig their way through walls of solid rock and supports, designed to fend off nuclear blasts, before they could break into the complex. They’d have better luck trying to break into Fort Knox.

“Man your positions,” he ordered, knowing that the orders were absurd. The designers of the complex had clearly anticipated a mutiny, or an uprising among the remainder of the staff, for they’d given Ben and his men armoured security positions and murder holes. He could have held the position for days – it wasn't as if the enemy could get a tank into the complex to blast them out – and yet, there was no reason to have such elaborate defences. “The base is going into lockdown.”

He checked his oxygen mask automatically as he picked up his rifle. The base was riddled with airlocks and security systems designed to deal with radioactive contamination from outside. If need be, the security doors could be triggered, breaking the base into hundreds of separate compartments that could be secured – or vented – one by one. The extensive safety briefing he’d been given when he first arrived had been clear. They had to act as if they expected a nuclear strike at any moment.

“Warning,” the intercom blared. “Internal lockdown procedures in ten, nine, eight...”

Ben scowled as the airlocks started to close. If it wasn't a drill, his superiors must be panicking, but why? Who had gotten into the base? He looked down at his console, a live feed from the internal security network, and scowled. There were no security updates, no warnings about intruders, just the lockdown statement. It made no sense. Perhaps it was a drill and some jerk-off in security had decided to claim that it wasn’t, just to watch people scurry around like rats in a trap. Ben resigned himself to a long wait before the airlocks opened and the people inside the inner security zone could leave. At least they’d have some idea what was actually going wrong...

He looked up in surprise as a yellow light started to flash on one of the airlocks. It started to open slowly, revealing seven men from the new security detachment. Allowing them in the base hadn’t been the brightest of ideas, for it had soon become clear that they had never served as internal guards before. Someone higher up had decided that the complex needed boosted security and they’d selected men who had excellent records as guards from the Middle East. The skills were different at NORAD.

“Sergeant Chu,” the leader called. He was an arrogant asshole, cold and withdrawn to the point where Ben had found himself unable to warm up to him at all. “I must ask you to vacate your post while we search it.”

Ben stared at him in disbelief. “Are you out of your ****ing mind...?”

The truth – he was certain that it was the truth – exploded into his mind. There was an internal security alert and it was no drill. The new security personnel were the intruders! He had no idea if they were terrorists or part of the militia Clan had had become Public Enemy Number One in the last two months, but it hardly mattered. Of course, someone had cleared them for operating within NORAD, yet Ben had no faith in superior officers to do anything other than screw up. Besides, he had strict orders not to leave his post without being relieved by his superior officers.

He keyed the emergency alert key and reached for his rifle. “I cannot follow that order,” he said, using hand-signs to alert his men. “I need orders from Security Central to...”

One of the newcomers pointed a pen-like device at him. Ben barely had a moment to raise his rifle before there was a buzzing noise and his entire body went limp. He collapsed on the ground like a pile of limp clothes, banging his elbow against the floor. It was impossible to move his head, but he heard sounds that suggested that the remainder of his team had been hit with the same weapon. His body felt numb, devoid of feeling. Whatever they’d hit him with, it was powerful and dangerous.

Strong arms reached for him and turned him over, leaving him looking into the face of a stranger. The newcomer looked almost inhuman; his face betrayed no emotion, no sense of delight or hatred. Ben expected to be killed, or to be secured and taken prisoner, but instead the newcomer produced a device from his belt. It was a silvery tool shaped rather like a tiny cylinder. The newcomer pressed it against the side of his head and there was a brief spark of pain, as if something had been shot into his skull. Ben felt his body flopping back to the floor as the newcomer walked away, leaving him helpless.

And then the whispering began.

***​

General Sandra Dyson considered herself to be calm and unemotional in the face of any crisis. She had been in the USAF for over thirty years and had worked hard to earn a reputation for remaining unflappable. As the commanding officer of the United States United States Strategic Command, she dared not let herself panic. She’d been in the chamber when the Iranians had launched their first ballistic missile and when the Russians had fired a test missile without alerting the United States. And yet, right now, she was as close to panic as she had ever come in her life.

The consoles showing the integrated take from the radars and sensors operated by NORAD were blank. The operators had been locked out of the system; even Sandra’s codes had failed to unlock the computers. She knew the system from the inside – indeed, she'd been charged with upgrading the system in recent years – and she knew that it was far more than just equipment failure. There were just too many redundant systems for the entire complex to go down. They were separated, hardened against EMP and secured against computer attacks, and yet they had all failed. That meant sabotage and that meant, she feared, that it was nothing more than the opening steps in a full-scale invasion. And that raised the question of just who thought they could invade the United States...

She lifted her phone – the secure phone to the President, which was supposed to be completely secure – and cursed as she realised that the line was down. All lines in and out of the complex were down and she couldn't even raise security or other stations within the base. The internal control system appeared to be down as well, which meant...what? Sandra knew that her people could survive, in the inner core of the mountain alone, for months if necessary, yet she had no idea what was going on. The chances were good that all hell was on the verge of breaking loose and there was nothing she could do.

“General,” Lieutenant Richie shouted. There was something in his voice that worried Sandra. With the systems they relied upon gone, discipline was badly affected. Everyone knew that something had gone badly wrong. “The main doors are opening!”

Sandra stared in disbelief, and then stood up, striding out of her office towards the airlocks. The Lieutenant was right; they were opening, despite the security protocols that her office had checked time and time again. Sandra had a sudden horrified premonition of what was about to happen and reached for her sidearm, only to feel something slam into her back and send her crashing limply towards the floor. Richie – a man she trusted, a man she’d personally recommended for accelerated promotion – stepped over her, holding a tiny device in his hand. The airlock completed its opening cycle and the enemy force entered the innermost core of America’s defences. Sandra had a moment to realise just how badly she had failed her country, just before something was shot into her forehead. There was a brief spark of pain, a sense that something was unfolding inside her skull...and then she discovered that there were fates far worse than death.

 

Just a point... the Airforce dosen't use Specilists... thats an Army rank... the AF equalivent is SRA or Senior Airman... if they had the codes it wouldm probably be a higher level individual minimum of Staff Sargent...

keep it up...

 

Chapter Thirty-Six<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

If the aliens decided to take over, how would it happen? Would they send massive flying saucers to orbit Washington, or would they launch a more subtle invasion?
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Washington DC, USA

The entire White House shook for a second time.

David cursed under his breath as he grasped his rifle. He had wanted to be out on the streets, taking part in Operation Clean Sweep, but General Nicolas had reminded him that he was still a wanted fugitive and if he ran into someone who hadn't got the word, he might wind up arrested and handed over to whatever was left of Majestic. Instead, he’d wound up in command of a group of Marine reservists who had been hastily called back to duty and found himself charged with defending the White House.

“Sergeant, what the hell is going on?”

“Stay where you are,” David ordered. The Marines outside, the ones manning the gates, weren’t reservists. The explosion sounded as if it had gone off far too close to them. It also sounded as if a full-scale war had broken out just outside the White House. David recalled what Nicolas had told him and shivered. The aliens had presumably been moving their pieces into place ever since they’d lost a craft in Kansas and were launching their strike ahead of time. He keyed his radio and swore when there was no response, but a blast of static. The combat-grade radios were supposed to be impossible to jam...the aliens, clearly, had more than a few tricks up their sleeves.

A third explosion shook the entire building, sending plaster drifting down from the ceiling. There was a crash in the distance as an overhead light, hanging from above on a single chain, crashed to the ground and shattered. David cursed again, wondering just what the hell was going on, before remembering the contingency plans. Somehow, none of them included the need to defend the White House against what sounded like an entire regiment of attackers.

“Man your defensive positions,” he ordered. The President had vetoed preparing any defences ahead of time, fearing that it would spark public unrest. David had reluctantly agreed, even though he’d quietly made preparations for rapidly converting the White House into a fortress. “I’m going to consult with the General.”

He made his way up the stairs, silently praying that he wasn't leaving his men to their deaths. God alone knew what was going on out there, but without communications they were unable to summon help, either from the Marine Barracks or another military unit. The chances were good that someone would notice what was going on, yet would they be friendly or under alien control? Confusion would probably kill more humans than the aliens and their enslaved allies. He glanced out of a window, careful to keep his head low, and sucked in his breath. There were fires burning all over Washington and no sign of the aircraft that should have been orbiting, high overhead.

The sight almost brought tears to his eyes. Like many survivalists, he had viewed the federal government’s uncontrolled growth with concern, fearing the consequences for the nation and its people, but Washington was still the capital of the United States. Seeing it desecrated was heart-rending, all the worse because he knew that it was only the beginning. The aliens were assaulting the gates and, he assumed, every other base of tactical importance within the city. How long would it be before they charged the White House and broke into the building, attempting to take the President alive?

“David,” Nicolas said, with relief. The General looked nervous, his face pale and wan. “I think you’d better come with me. I need you to hear this as well.”

David followed the General into the Oval Office. Black shutters, he noted, had come down to protect the President from attack, but it didn't strike him as very secure. The aliens would know where the President was and come for him, sooner rather than later. Once he was implanted, he could issue orders to the civilian population, preparing them to welcome their new overlords. Resistance would be futile.

The President looked terrible. His face was pale and he was seated in one corner, holding his head in his hands. David understood the feeling of helplessness – he’d shared it when he’d seen Mariko carried away by the black-shirted alien hybrids – and yet there was no time to wallow in it. The President had to be evacuated from the area as soon as possible, before something else went badly wrong. The entire building rocked again as another explosion, perhaps in the direction of the Pentagon, echoed out in the distance. David found himself wondering about the White House’s stability.

“Mr President,” Nicolas said. His tone was uncommonly gentle. David would have been a great deal sharper – and cruder. “You need to hear this.”

The President looked up. “I have failed,” he said. “I have lost the entire country...”

“You have not lost,” David said, angrily. Deep inside, he wondered if the President might be right. No one, not even the Japanese or Germans, had managed to land an invasion force in Washington. He pushed the thought aside angrily. The aliens might be powerful, but they sure as hell weren’t gods. “Mr President, we have taken a serious blow – yet we’re still in the fight. You have to listen to the General.”

General Nicolas cleared his throat. “The news isn't good, Mr President,” he said. “The main communications network is down. I was able to speak, very briefly, with a friend of mine at Camp Pendleton before the civilian lines crashed as well. He reported that the base was under attack and that there were fire fights inside the base. I have been unable to raise any other military bases from here. The White House radio network has been jammed.”

He paused. “I sent a Marine up to the roof to look around with a pair of binoculars,” he continued. “He reported fires burning all over the city. The Pentagon, the Marine Barracks and every other government or military building in the city has been either taken or is under attack. We must assume that every other major military base in the city is also under attack.”

David shivered, despite the heat. If the aliens had launched such a sweeping offensive, it suggested that Clean Sweep had not only failed, it had also been doomed from the start. And if the aliens had had their hooks so deeply into the intelligence community, the chances were good that they knew all of the presidential hidey-holes. The contingency planning had never anticipated an attack on such a scale. David cursed their own lack of imagination as the President stared up at them, hopelessly. If they’d anticipated what the aliens had done...

“We need to get you out of here,” General Nicolas said. “We have to get you into the tunnel.”

The President blinked. “But won’t the tunnel be compromised?”

David had to smile. The President wasn't as far out of it as he had assumed. “The problem, Mr President,” General Nicolas said patiently, “is that there are armed hostiles assaulting the gates. We must assume that they will fall soon enough, once the enemy brings their full strength to bear on the White House. Calling in Marine One is asking to be shot down – we know the enemy has antiaircraft weapons – and trying to cross above ground in the middle of a war zone would be suicide. That leaves the tunnel.”

His voice was bitter. David shared his concern. The aliens had to know about the tunnel network under the White House, which meant that they’d be expecting the President to use it and attempt to escape. And that meant that they might be walking right into the aliens clutches. Once the President was captured...

The building shook again, badly enough to send pictures crashing off the walls and down to the floor. “Come on,” General Nicolas snapped. “We have to get the President out of here!”

“I’ll meet you in the secure room,” David said, and ran back to his men. Bullets were peppering the side of the White House now, suggesting that the aliens and their slaves were preparing to advance. The Marines had dragged in furniture to provide some cover, but David was sure that it wouldn’t hold off a determined assault for more than a few minutes. He barked orders, sending half of the team to join the General and the President, while ordering the other half to delay the enemy and then try to slip out in the confusion. A desperate last stand benefited no one and wouldn’t delay the enemy for long.

The White House’s lower basement had once been intended as a secure conference room and command post. Now, the doors had been wedged open, allowing David and his Marines to run down to meet the General. A handful of operators were still working desperately at the computers, trying to contact someone – anyone – but it was clear that the airwaves were completely jammed. The ground shook again, followed by new alarms as the aliens finally started assaulting the building.

General Nicolas waved him over towards an ordinary looking door, but when it was opened, David saw a sloping tunnel reaching down under the city. It was illuminated by weak lighting from above, much to his relief. The aliens and their hybrids, according to the doctors, could probably see in the dark. The tunnel network would be powered by its own internal power generator and the aliens would have problems turning the lights off until they secured the generators physically. Or so he hoped.

“You’ll take the lead,” General Nicolas ordered. “This part of the complex should be completely empty. Kill anyone you come across.”

David blinked. “Sir?”

“Anyone inside the complex is working for the enemy,” Nicolas said, coldly. “Terminate them before they can summon help from the aliens.”

There was only one answer. “Yes, sir,” David said. “We’re on our way.”

The interior of the tunnel was surprisingly dusty – or perhaps it wasn't such a surprise, not when the tunnel had only one purpose. David kept his weapon at the ready as they moved deeper underground, before the tunnel levelled out and started to head north. They passed a small bunker with a communications station and paused for a moment, before heading onwards. There was no sign of trouble, but David felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand up. Something was wrong, even though he had no idea what, or even if he was imagining it.

He looked back towards the General. “Sir,” he asked, “where are we going?”

Nicolas grinned. “There’s a reason I'm a General and you’re a retired Sergeant,” he said. David had to smile at seeing the old Nicolas flickering back into existence. “I thought about that before we even entered the tunnel.”

“Oh,” David said, dryly. “And what were you thinking about?”

The ground shivered suddenly, suggesting a colossal explosion somewhere on the surface. From what little David knew of the tunnel complex, it had been designed to withstand a nuclear blast – at least an aerial detonation. An explosion large enough to shake the hidden complex had to be worryingly powerful. What were the aliens doing to Washington DC?

“The aliens have to be assumed to know everything known to the intelligence community,” Nicolas said, calmly. He grinned, mischievously. “And yet, the spooks weren't told everything about the defences of Washington. There were some secrets known only to the Marine Corps and a handful of Secret Service agents. I’d bet good money that there were secrets known only to the other Joint Chiefs as well.”

David frowned. “How did the Marines know about them?”

“The Marines – well, an engineering unit – installed certain...classified parts of the system,” Nicolas said. “One of my predecessors organised it in the weeks following 9/11 and passed the secret on to his successors. If the **** really hit the fan, we would be ready to get the President out of the city without needing to rely on anyone else.”

He scowled. “The thing is, they will probably know where the tunnel officially ends,” he added. “They probably have a force there waiting for us to pop out of the hole and snatch us. There is, however, another exit. Once we get up there, we will have to make our way out of the city and hopefully reach Quantico.”

“If it’s still standing,” David said, grimly. The aliens would know that Quantico was the centre of the resistance and would almost certainly move against the base, probably recovering their captured comrade at the same time. He hated not knowing what was going on. American forces had isolated dictators from their troops and intelligence agents over the years, using homing missiles and jammers to cut off all communication...and now the shoe was very definitely on the other foot. Their world had shrunk to the tunnel and little else.

“It will be,” Nicolas said, clearly trying to project a confidence he didn't feel. “However, the President will have to go somewhere completely off the record. Once they start coming down this tunnel, they will find the alternate exit and then they will know where we have gone.”

David shared a glance with one of the other Marines. Two of them could stay behind and delay the aliens, at the cost of their lives – or perhaps their mental freedom. Yet...how many loyalist troops were there? The aliens could have implanted thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of American soldiers. They might be following the orders of their alien masters, unable to even consider resisting. The thought was nightmarish. The Marines could leave small surprises behind to delay the aliens, yet he doubted it would slow the aliens up very much. The warriors were just too nimble.

“Here,” Nicolas said. He’d been checking the walls for the past few minutes, looking for a mark that wasn't immediately obvious. It took David a moment to spot it. Someone had reversed one of the plates, something that would normally be taken as worker incompetence unless someone took a very close look at it. Nicolas pulled the plate away, revealing a keypad and fingerprint scanner. He pressed his finger against the scanner and smiled in relief as the system accepted his authority. A moment later, a section of the wall fell away and revealed a ladder reaching up towards the surface.

“They designed this to pass as an air vent,” he said, by way of explanation. “David, you and two men lead the way. The rest of us will come afterwards.”

David scrambled up the shaft and found himself staring out of a grate. A single push brought it down, allowing him to climb out into what looked like an ordinary basement. He drew his sidearm and walked towards the steps leading up and out of the basement, listening carefully for signs of trouble. There was nothing, just an eerie hum and the sound of gunfire in the distance. He clutched his weapon and pushed the door open, finding himself in a deserted kitchen. It was, he realised, a government-owned safe house, so secret that it wouldn't be in anyone’s books.

“Come on,” he called. Three minutes later, Nicolas and the President joined him. “What do we do now?”

“We get the car out of the garage and drive out of the city,” Nicolas said, practically. He nodded towards the view from the windows. Great clouds of smoke were billowing up over Washington, suggesting that something had gone very wrong in the centre of the city. “People will be panicking and trying to flee the city. We’d better get out before the aliens try to keep people from fleeing.”

“Sir,” one of the Marines said. The team had been pushed together so quickly that David didn't even know his name. “I think you’ll want to hear this.”

He was holding a small radio, one that used batteries rather than mains power. “...Is the emergency broadcast system,” a voice said. David swore. The voice was a mystery to him, but there was no mistaking the authority in its tone. “This is an official government message. There is a civil and military emergency in process. Terrorists have launched a number of attacks against military and governmental installations, along with cyber attacks on telecommunications networks and radiological bombs in civilian areas. Martial law has been declared nationally. All civilians must listen to the following message and comply with it for their own safety and that of their families. There is no need to panic. Remain in your homes. Whatever you see or hear, do not attempt to go out on the streets. The radiation cannot harm you if you remain in your homes. Power, water and telecommunications will be restored as soon as possible. Until then, please remain in your homes. The President is alive and will address the nation shortly. Further updates will be broadcast as soon as possible. Please remain tuned to this station. This is an official government message.”

There was a pause and then the message began to repeat. “It's on all the civilian channels, sir,” the Marine said. He keyed his radio. “The military channels are still jammed completely, but every civilian radio in the country is going to get that message.”

“Interesting,” Nicolas said, thoughtfully.

“Interesting,” David repeated. “That message is going to cause a panic!”

“Maybe not,” Nicolas said, slowly. “They told everyone to remain in their homes, so they won't be in the way. The threat of radiation will keep people cowering inside until it’s far too late to do anything...”

“Unless they hear the word radiation and start running for their lives,” David said. “What the hell do we do now?”

Nicolas shrugged. “We get out of the city now and head back to base,” he said. “Once we’re there, we can try to get a handle on whatever s really going on.”

“You know what’s going on,” the President said, sharply. “They just took the entire country!”

 

Happy Birthday Chris! I just came across this thread and it is next on my list!

 

Chapter Thirty-Seven<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The Greys have never said ‘take us to your leader’ and indeed they seem to show little interest in human politics. And yet, they probe their victims’ minds quite extensively. Might they know more than they claim?
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Washington DC, USA

The explosion knocked Charlie Sheen to his knees.

“Sir,” his bodyguard shouted at him, “we have to get out of here!”

Charlie cursed. He’d been desperate for a role – any role – in Operation Clean Sweep, believing that it would atone for his role in earlier failures. Even bringing in Sven and Sharon hadn’t dimmed his sense of guilt. General Nicolas had finally agreed to assign him to the team sweeping through the new Joint Intelligence Agency building near the centre of Washington, which had been targeted on Howard’s recommendation. One of Majestic’s former officers had been appointed to run the JIA after it had been formed in 2016, suggesting that everyone in the JIA had been implanted by the aliens.

“Where do we go?” He shouted back. The entire building was shaking. A quick glance out of the window told him that Washington had dissolved into chaos. Charlie had seen secret CIA files on how the population could be expected to react to a major terrorist attack and few of them were cheerful. Another glance showed smoke and fire billowing up from near the White House. “Where do we go?”

“Out of the city,” his bodyguard said, sharply. He'd been told to listen to the two former Rangers, particularly if Operation Clean Sweep went south. It certainly looked as if it had gone completely to hell. “Come on, sir.”

Charlie allowed the Ranger to pull him through an emergency door and down a set of stairs. The interior of the stairwell was horrifyingly exposed – the designers had created a wooden and glass monstrosity that allowed the sunlight to illuminate the stairwell – and he had the uneasy feeling that unseen snipers were following their every move and caressing their trigger fingers. He stopped suddenly, just for a second, and stared out as there was a flash of light in the distance, followed by a billowing fireball. The aliens and their implanted slaves seemed to be taking official Washington apart. He looked up into the sky, expecting to see a black triangle-like spacecraft like Jon had reported from Kansas, but the skies were clear, ominously so. There was supposed to be a CAP of Raptor fighters orbiting Washington at all times, watching for unidentified contacts. He could see no sign of them against the clear blue sky.

They crashed through a secure door and into the lobby. It was a war zone; the handful of loyal troopers assigned to Clean Sweep was pinned down, firing back at men who had appeared from nowhere and were assaulting the building. Charlie shivered as he smelled the unmistakable stench of death and gunfire, wafting across his noise. A hail of bullets slammed into the wall beside him and he squeaked, driving for the ground. He couldn't tell what was going on, or who was winning; the entire scene was incredibly chaotic.

“This way,” his bodyguard snapped. Charlie realised in astonishment that the Ranger was pulling him towards the rear of the building, where a handful of cars had been parked. They slipped out of the rear entrance and saw no enemy fighters. Charlie didn't like it – even he knew that surrounding the building was the first step to taking it, unless the enemy hoped that the defenders would cut and run if they were left an opening – but there was no other choice. Keeping low, he followed the Ranger – it struck him suddenly that he didn't even know the man’s name – until they reached a small unremarkable car.

His bodyguard pulled out what looked like a hatpin and fiddled with the electric lock. It seemed impossible, but there was a click and the car unlocked. A moment later, the Ranger was poking around in the dashboard and the engine hummed to life. Charlie stared in astonishment as the Ranger pushed him into the driving seat and turned to head back to his comrades. It struck him suddenly that he was being abandoned.

“Stay there,” the Ranger ordered. “Get ready to drive off as soon as I give the command...”

A hail of bullets came out of nowhere and sent the Ranger tumbling over backwards, blood leaking from his skull, where his face had used to be. Charlie stared in horror, barely aware of the men running towards him from behind, and then somehow managed to gun the engine, fleeing for his life. The car lurched uncomfortably, but roared down the drive towards the rear entrance. A burst of gunfire flashed over his head, followed by a pair of nasty cracks from the rear; the bastards were shooting at him! He had a moment to curse himself for the absurdity of that thought – of course the bastards were shooting at him – and then something struck the car with the hammer of god. Charlie had only a second to realise what was going on as the car seemed to flip over and come crashing down on the ground. There was an instant of searing pain, a moment of blackness...

He came back to himself, with no idea how much time had passed. Somehow – God alone knew how – he was hanging from the chair in the upside-down car. His chest hurt and he couldn't feel his legs, but from the blood dripping down onto the roof, he knew that it wasn’t good. His eyesight was blurry and he was dimly aware of his life leaking away. He pulled himself together, somehow, and looked up at his chest. Something – part of the car, he assumed in his dim state – was rammed right into his body. It hurt to even try to breath and movement was completely out of the question. His entire body hurt like hell.

Had it all been his fault, he asked himself? He’d passed Jon’s video on to higher authority, never realising that part of the CIA was badly compromised. He’d alerted Majestic – and their alien masters – about the threat Jon and his brother posed to their plans. How many had died in Washington, in however many minutes or hours it had been after the city was attacked, because of his failure? If there was a god, a concept Charlie Sheen had never truly embraced, he would be the only one to die this day. The mere thought was absurd. The aliens and their servants had torn the city apart. Hundreds of people were certainly dead, or injured, or terrified, wondering what the hell was going on. Charlie wouldn't even be the first to die, merely the only one who deserved it. The alien slaves had no choice because the aliens controlled them, but Charlie...he had had free will. He’d brought devastation to the heart of his capital city. It dawned on him that the President might be dead. The line of succession had been broken. How could the country survive?

He felt his body shift slightly and knew that he was doomed. Whatever was holding him upright in the impossible position was about to give. He remembered, suddenly, all the men and women who had gone off to fight for their country. How he had mocked them, when they were discharged from the army or dismissed for some technical violation; how he had exploited them for the benefit of the CIA. And how many of them had he sent into action for unseen inhuman masters? He’d never known what it was like to face death for his country, not until it was far too late. The history books would take about the heroes, about Jon and David Crawford and General Nicolas, not a goddamned traitor like him. His body shifted again and he felt, or thought he felt, something pressing against his heart. He remembered his mistress and felt a sudden burst of regret. He’d never called her and told her he loved her before the **** hit the fan. His body shifted again and the pain worsened. Charlie opened his mouth to scream, but it was already too late.

As something started to tear into his heart, his last thought was relief. Unless they were truly gods, the aliens would never be able to implant him and turn him into one of his slaves.

***​

“The **** has hit the fan,” Crisco said. He affected a faux English accent. “Might I recommend that we start bugging out right now?”

“No kidding,” Jon said. God alone knew how the aliens had done it, but they’d somehow smuggled an entire army into Washington. Or perhaps the army had been there all along, men and women who had never known that they had been implanted, until the implants had been activated and turned them into slaves. The ambush party that had captured Short had found itself ambushed in turn. Four good men now lay dead on Washington’s streets, while the remainder huddled back and tried to avoid the incoming fire. “Who the ****ing hell are these guys?”

He peered towards the enemy position, trying to see what the hell was going on. The entire tactical situation had gone straight to hell. The radios, which were supposed to remain usable in almost any conditions, were being jammed. He caught sight of a civilian pay phone at one end of the street and briefly considered trying to call the Pentagon, before realising that anyone who could jam military radios would have no problem taking down the civilian computer net. The entire unit was isolated, not just from higher authority, but from anyone who might be able to help.

“They look like riot police to me,” Crisco said, disdainfully. The military policeman held the civilian police in total contempt. “One of those new special units that is supposed to be flown in to a riot scene and reinforce the locals before some poor delicate protester gets his ****ing head bruised by a riot club.” He lifted his gun and took two shots at the nearest policeman, who was firing bursts of machine gun fire towards his targets. The policeman stumbled backwards, but kept firing, despite the blood pouring from his shoulder. His face was cold and expressionless. Jon had a sudden vision of the future under the aliens and shivered. “What do you want to do, sir?”

Jon tried to think. They’d gamed out operations in Arab cities and countries, operations that were either totally deniable or just cut off from outside support because some weasel of a politician was too cowardly to risk close-air support to help American Special Forces units on deployment. They’d never seriously considered losing control of Washington to terrorists, let alone what was, in effect, a mutiny among American military personnel. Jon had assisted dissident military units to launch coups before, in Africa, and knew their weaknesses. No one knew who could be trusted, which meant that any other unit they encountered was just as likely to be controlled by the aliens as friendly. And even if they were still loyal, they wouldn't have the slightest idea what was going on. Jon cursed their timidity as he started to formulate a plan. They should have just cleared the entire 3<SUP>rd</SUP> Infantry Division, and then swooped down into Washington and secured the entire city.

In a bad movie, the cut-off unit would immediately advance towards the enemy centre of operations and – thanks to a patriotic scriptwriter – somehow take out the centre of enemy power. In real life, Jon knew, things rarely worked out that well. His unit had no idea where to go, or even where the closest friendly base was, apart from Quantico. And if the aliens knew that Quantico had been cleared of their drones, they would be moving against the base as soon as possible. They had to get out and make contact before it was too late. Either General Nicolas would evacuate the base and disperse into the underground, or the aliens would drop a hammer on it from orbit. Both outcomes would cut them off completely from the resistance.

He closed his eyes for a moment in silent prayer and then looked up. “On my signal, fire the two remaining antitank missiles towards the police cars,” he said. The riot police had invested in armoured cars that could have passed for military units, if they switched out the police colouring scheme for army camouflage. Their presence, he remembered suddenly, had not been greeted with enthusiasm by the more extreme members of the Clan. They’d believed that converting the police into a paramilitary unit was bad news. “Once they explode, we go west and head towards the safe house.”

“It won't be safe very much longer,” Crisco warned, as the missile crews set up the antitank missiles. Jon would have smiled if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Back before the world had gone to hell, Javelin missiles had been expensive, so expensive that the bean-counters had objected strongly to firing them on exercises. Jon, who would have preferred to know how well a given weapon worked before he took it onto the battlefield, didn't think much of their concerns. “The bastards are running right down a damned checklist.”

“Let's just hope they think a single renegade unit isn't worth dealing with,” Jon agreed. He raised his voice. “Prepare to fire on my command” – he paused, watching as four newcomers appeared to join the hostile force – “fire!”

The two missiles struck their targets and both vehicles exploded into fireballs. They'd been designed to deal with Molotov cocktails and, perhaps, light weapons; they’d never been designed to stand up to antitank missiles. The improved version of the missile could take out an M2 Abrams even if it struck the tank’s frontal armour. Jon didn't hesitate. As soon as the missiles were launched, he turned and waved for the team to run. A shower of bullets rained down around them as they ran, but no one was hit. The enemy was clearly badly disorientated by the explosions. That, Jon knew, would not last.

They jogged faster as they ran into civilian areas. Jon would have preferred to remain out of them, but there was no choice. Heading back into the centre of the city looked like a form of suicide. He glanced back and allowed himself a moment of relief as the enemy clearly decided to let them go, for the moment. They’d be back. The billowing clouds of smoke over the city suggested that they had other fish to fry.

“Over there,” Crisco said. Jon followed his pointing finger and nodded. The car dealership wasn't the type of place he would normally visit – he disliked buying cars from sweet-talking salesmen – but it was the easiest place to get transport. Crisco knocked in the glass door and looked around. There was no sign of anyone and the power was off. Jon scowled. He knew that Washington’s power network was more redundant than most people suspected. Taking it all down should have been impossible. “Sir...”

“Find a couple of cars,” Jon ordered. There was no one else around, but if law and order had been completely shattered, it wouldn't be long until the looting started. Parts of Washington were so poor and desperate that they’d take any opportunity to loot, and riot, and just do as much damage as they could. “I’m going to check the radio.”

Crisco nodded as Jon walked over to the small civilian radio on the desk. As he had hoped, the radio was battery-powered, rather than dependent upon the mains. He twisted a few knobs until he heard the unmistakable tone of the Emergency Broadcasting System. The message – repeated time and time again – sent shivers down his spine.

“I got the cars working,” Crisco called. Jon barely heard him. “Hey, boss; are you all right?”

Jon shook his head. “Listen,” he said. Crisco listened silently to the message. “What the hell does that suggest to you?”

“That they have control over the airwaves,” Crisco said, calmly. “They control the vertical, they control the horizontal...”

Jon glared at him. “This isn't the time for jokes,” he said, angrily. He would have swung a fist at Crisco if he’d had the energy. The radio broadcast had struck him with all the force of a punch in the chest. “Do you know what this means?”

“It means that we drive out of the city before they start blocking the way and head to base,” Crisco said. “Anything else can wait until we meet up with the General.”

Jon kept his thoughts to himself. General Nicolas had taken personal command of Operation Clean Sweep from the White House. He might not have made it out of the city.

“Yeah,” he said, finally. He looked at the four men – and Gaby – who were depending on him. “Let’s go.”

***​

The drive out of Washington was nightmarish.

The radio message had ordered people to remain in their homes. Jon was sure, after watching the chaos as they made their escape, that most of the population had chosen to ignore that warning. The police were either confused, trying to follow orders to keep the population in the city, or clearly under alien control. There were an endless series of nasty scenes as the police used all necessary force to keep the population penned in, captive.

Once they were out of the city, Crisco avoided the interstates and drove on the back roads instead, hoping to escape scrutiny. The GPS in the car refused to work, while the radio only repeated the same message time and time again. Jon found himself wondering just how far the alien influence had spread. Was the same thing happening all over the country?

He thought briefly of William and Sharon, who had been moved to safer locations – or so he hoped. Who knew what the aliens would do to them, once they ruled the world?

 

Chapter Thirty-Eight<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

If it did come down to war between humans and aliens, who would win? The aliens have their advanced technology, but humans have the numbers and – unlike the aliens – the inability to escape to another solar system. And yet, such a war would be devastating...
-William Sonnenleiter, Accounts of Abduction, 2015

Quantico, USA

“Ladies and gentlemen,” General Nicolas said, as the President entered, “the President of the United States of America.”

The assembled military personnel got to their feet, a gesture of respect for a man who no longer felt Presidential. The hours since their escape from Washington had been bad, allowing them glimpses of the nightmare securing its grip around the country, while leaving them with no idea about how they could fight back and defeat the insidious enemy. David Clark knew that his title of President was meaningless in all, but name. As darkness fell over the east coast, a different darkness was settling upon the land.

“Gentlemen, be seated,” he said. He had spent hours trying to think of a solution, of something – anything – they could do, but there was nothing. The alien sitting in the Marine Corps Brig had made that very clear. Its mental communications had suggested, chillingly, that lying was simply not something the aliens did; it truly believed every word it had spoken directly to the President’s mind. The President would have been more reassured if an alien craft had attempted to recover their imprisoned comrade. “General Nicolas, if you would...”

Nicolas spoke grimly, but with no attempt to soften the blow. “As you know,” he said, “the country has effectively been invaded and occupied. We may be the last untainted base on the American mainland. We are almost certainly right at the top of the alien hit list, once they secure their principle objectives. We need to consider how best to hit back at the enemy.”

He nodded to a young Colonel the President didn't know. “Colonel Disking will give the main briefing,” he added. “We have some information. We just don’t know how reliable it is under the current circumstances.”

Colonel Disking had an air of solid competence that the President liked at once. He was taller, balding and rather reassembled a bulldog. “Mr President,” he said. “When the...offensive first began, the communications centres here attempted to get in touch with other military bases around the country. The results were mixed; some military bases reported that they were under attack from within; others claimed that everything was fine and several simply didn't respond at all. The jamming closed in within minutes; the secure telecommunications network we devised to survive a mass nuclear attack has simply gone down. We are, at least to some extent, isolated from the rest of the country.

“We also established taps into various civilian and federal government emergency management services,” he continued. “Those networks were taken down as well, but in the last moments before they collapsed they recorded a sudden wave of incidents all over the country. Armed terrorists were reported to be storming several nuclear power plants, civil and military buildings came under attack and explosions were seen at various military bases. That number, I must add, includes several that claimed that everything was fine. I think we have to assume that those bases have been compromised.

“The old telecommunications network is still functioning, although intermittently and the aliens may cut us off from it at any time. It reported a number of riots in major cities and considerable panic and looting. We sent spotters into several cities and their reports do not make encouraging reading. I believe that the aliens have launched a soft coup – at least a variant on a soft coup – against us.”

The President frowned. “What is a soft coup?”

“The basic concept was developed after the Gulf War by the Jedi Knights – ah, the operations team that came up with the war plan for the Gulf – and modified by the CIA,” Disking explained. “The idea was that we could insert ourselves into the enemy’s communications and computer networks and take control. Once we had hacked into the network, we could use it to spoof the enemy into defeat – we could send orders to the enemy air force, for example, to bomb an enemy force on the ground. The enemy would never know what had happened until it was far too late. Even if they did realise what was going on, they’d have colossal problems in dealing with it.

“The aliens, it seems, have done three things. They’ve taken the federal government down and secured control over the communications network. They’ve inserted their own people into positions of power. And finally, they’ve activated the Shadow Government. The humans who are already implanted will follow their orders; the humans who are not implanted, but unaware of what is actually taking place, will also follow their orders. They will believe that they are following legitimate orders.”

The President rubbed his forehead. The Shadow Government was a contingency plan everyone had hoped never to actually have to use. If the country was attacked on a massive scale – a massive nuclear assault – and the government was scattered, the Shadow Government was supposed to take control of whatever was left and start rebuilding the country. The President had seen some of those contingency plans and they had left him chilled to the bone. Imagine trapping survivors of a nuked city inside the city so they could die, just so the countryside could live and eventually rebuild the nation. He knew that he could never have made such decisions and had always prayed that he would never need to activate any of the contingency plans.

General Nicolas had a different question. “Who do they have as the public face of the federal government?”

“We don’t know, as yet,” Disking admitted. “Their only broadcast to the nation was the emergency broadcast system message, which is still going out. The interesting part is that in some parts of the country, the message is different. The local police, military and emergency medical personnel are being advised to stay at home. We don't know why.”

“I can guess,” Nicolas said, sourly. “They stay out of the way while the aliens take control, then they get invited into their bases and get implanted. And then they join the enemy.”

The President had a different concern. “What about our allies?” He asked. “Is there anyone outside the country who could help us?”

“The truth is, Mr President, we don't know,” Disking said. “All satellite communications have been cut off and we have no links outside the country. We did, however, pick up a handful of emergency messages on the British and French communications networks before the whole thing went crashing down. The odds are good that they have been hit as well, which suggests the aliens have gone after Russia and China as well. They would have found implanting their victims easier there; they didn't even have a Majestic to try to even the odds.”

“On the other hand,” General Nicolas put in, “their forces may be in better shape.”

The President quirked an eyebrow, puzzled. “There is a...considerable problem with the military vehicles we have here,” General Nicolas admitted. “They have been sabotaged.” He winced at the President’s expression. “We figured it out, eventually. Every vehicle, aircraft and ship in the United States was fitted, only a few years ago, with a Blue Force Tracker. It was supposed to be the latest word in perfect command and control from a rear base. It allowed generals real-time data on what their forces were doing; it even allowed them to watch as they engaged the enemy. And all of the computer nodes were rigged.”

He shook his head. “Every vehicle carrying a tracker is now useless until we pull the tracker out of the system,” he said. “We can do that easily for trucks or even tanks, but it seems that the more advanced aircraft are useless without the tracker. My best guess is that they slipped a few lines of programming into their computers when they were created and that's now been activated. The loyalist units may find that they have been largely disarmed.”

“I see,” the President said. Inwardly, he was reeling. The aliens had planned their masterstroke for years and even if they'd been forced to bring it forward, they’d pulled it off masterfully. The United States military was subverted or in retreat; hell, most of the loyalists didn't even know that there was a war on. And that left one final question; two, in fact. “What’s happening with the civilian population?”

The glance passed between General Nicolas and his subordinate answered the question. “I suspect – we have very little actual data – that the civilian population doesn't have a clue as to what’s going on,” Disking said. “The message the aliens put on the airwaves warned of terrorism, not invading aliens. I suspect that, outside the rioting cities, the civilian population is largely unharmed, but sidelined. That will change in the future, when the aliens finally show themselves to the general population, yet for the moment...

“There will be high civilian casualties in Washington, but outside I think that there will be relatively few casualties, at least at first. The absence of the internet and television stations will start causing unease and unrest, the more so as food supplies start to run out. I’m pretty sure that the aliens will try to keep a facade of normality going on until they have secured all of the military bases and then come into the open and take control.”

“Right,” the President said. He stared down at his hands. “So, what do we do?”

“We have to prepare to move,” General Nicolas said. “It won’t take them long to realise – if they don’t already know – that this base is far from secure. They may even know that we have a prisoner in the building – two, if you count Sven. They’ll be coming for us.”

The President nodded. “How long do we have?”

“Unknown,” General Nicolas admitted. “I have spotters and reconnaissance units out watching for incoming threats, but the truth is they could do anything from pointing a subverted armoured unit at us or dropping a kinetic weapon on our heads from orbit. I think we’re talking hours, days at the most. They won’t take the risk of leaving us here.”

***​

The meeting reconvened an hour later. General Nicolas had taken the time to inform him, in private, that all contact had been lost with the fleet of nuclear submarines. After everything else, the President wasn't unduly surprised. The aliens would have considered human nukes the greatest threat and moved swiftly to secure them once the invasion had begun. He wondered absently how it had been done – the naval crewmen might have been implanted, or perhaps the UFOs had simply sunk them from orbit – but that hardly mattered. All that mattered was that there was no hope of using the nukes to force the aliens to back off.

He was mildly surprised to discover that a civilian – and one of uncertain origins – had wound up as part of an intelligence cell, but he had been assured that Madiha Shafi was an extremely competent computer hacker. She’d been teamed up with Howard, who had been sharing what he knew of Majestic with her, Agent Evens and a handful of other FBI personnel. It was far from proper, but at the moment propriety was the least of their concerns.

“I have been attempting to analyse what they did to our computer networks,” Madiha said. “The first impression is that they took the network down completely. I discovered, after careful probing, that what they did was considerably more subtle. They have basically locked out anyone without the correct access codes – which includes us and other loyalist units – and I suspect they have been using the network to slip false information or orders to loyalist units.”

“But the network is down,” the President protested.

“It looks down,” Madiha explained. She grinned, mischievously. “I know computer systems that basically mislead hackers rather than immediately kicking them out of the system. When a computer without the correct codes attempts to access the network, the network responds by blanking them – effectively creating the impression that most of the network is down. We think the network is down; loyalists at...say, Fort Hood may think that the network is working perfectly and they’re receiving orders from the legitimate government.”

The President nodded slowly. “So can we use the network to pass on messages?”

“Not yet,” Madiha said. “All I can really do, now, is monitor their traffic and study it. They’ve taken over many of the communications nodes in the country – which is how they have effectively taken down the civilian internet – and much of that is being routed through a single computer system. It has to be alien, Mr President; I am right at the cutting edge of humanity’s computer technology and we have nothing that can match it.”

She tapped a key and a map of the country appeared in front of them. “They’re sending out a lot of signals,” she added. “They’ve taken the technology for wireless internet communication and enhanced it significantly. I think – I have no way to prove this – is that they’re using the system to control their implanted slaves. It isn't a coincidence that traffic on the network rose up sharply when the offensive began and continues to rise.

“What’s worse is that the aliens have a colossal amount of computing power at this disposal and a wireless field that simply slips through most firewalls. They can turn our cell phones into spies, read data out of our computers and disrupt our communications at will. Their network is what gives them their power.”

“So if we could take down the network,” the President said slowly, “we could regain control of our country?”

“We’d certainly disrupt their plans,” Madiha agreed, primly. “I should warn you, however, that they are certain to understand this weakness in their system. Their signals should also have set off security alerts in the Pentagon and other military bases. My guess is that some of the implanted slaves were programmed with long-term orders that saved the aliens from having to direct them personally. The newly-implanted personnel may revert to basic programming if the alien network is taken down.”

“So give it a virus,” the President said.

“We can't,” Madiha said. She shook her head slowly, one hand working at a strand of dark hair. “The computer network is too sophisticated for us to attack, even with the tools at our disposal here. It will safeguard itself and then alert its masters. Given time, we might be able to assemble a team of hackers and start breaking into the network, but I doubt that we will have that time.”

There was a sudden knock on the door. “Mr President, General, there’s a broadcast on the television,” a young soldier said. “You have to see this.”

General Nicolas tapped his keypad. The computer screen switched to a television and displayed Fox News. The President recoiled in shock as he took in a very familiar figure seated behind his desk in the Oval Office. It was his face.

“My fellow Americans,” the fake President said, “our country has suffered the gravest attack since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Domestic terrorists, intent on bringing down the Federal Government and imposing their vision on America, have launched a series of devastating attacks against our country, trying to bring us to our knees. They have damaged our telecommunications network and devastated the heart of Washington. In the name of their version of America, they have killed thousands of their fellow Americans.

“And yet, America is strong and resilient. It will take time to rebuild, but rebuild we shall; we will repair the damage they have inflicted and spare no effort in hunting down and exterminating the terrorists. With the full consent of Congress and the Senate, the state of Martial Law is hereby extended, to make it easier to track down the terrorists. Furthermore, in order to prevent the terrorists from restocking their supplies, we are declaring a temporary total ban on guns within the United States. All civilians are urged to hand their guns over to federal forces when they arrive; anyone caught with a gun afterwards will face a mandatory jail sentence of up to five years.

“Until normal law and order can be restored, civilians are urged to continue to follow the instructions transmitted through the emergency broadcast system. These are unsafe times, yet together, we shall win this war on terror. God bless America.”

The President fell back, shaken. “That doesn't even sound like me,” he protested, weakly.

“It does,” General Nicolas said, flatly. “With enough computing power, they could fake anything. And the entire country will have heard you. They will all know what they heard.”

“It makes perfect sense,” David Crawford said, bitterly. “Blaming everything on domestic terrorists allows them to ram through all kinds of laws and there will be almost no protest. Disarming the population will make ruling the country easier once they come out into the open. How can we resist without guns?”

He swung around to look at Howard. “Is there nothing you know that can be useful?” He asked. “Is there nowhere we can hit...?”

“Maybe,” Howard said. He frowned. “We were looking at how Majestic was operating since the...hostile takeover. They had all kinds of arrangements with American-based companies, building all kinds of things; the companies never knew what they were meant for, or who was really pulling the strings. Hell, it’s what we used to do while we...thought we could win.”

He shook his head and then looked up at the President. “But they’ve kept the base,” he said. “That’s where we used to put everything together before they took over. And once they had Majestic, taking the base would be easy. They’re based in the middle of nowhere in Nevada.”

Howard pointed to the map with one trembling finger. “And if we can take the base back, we would cripple them,” he added. “They’re based in Area 51.”

 

Hi everyone
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />
I have to take three days off to attend a wedding, so I’ve left you with a cliffhanger... (VBEG)

Please post comments and normal service will be resumed on Monday.

Chris