"Go." At my command Keith, Brandon, and Harlan sneak out from under the bushes, cross the street and enter Cosco through the back entrance. John and I watch Eli for a sign of trouble since his sensitive ears can hear things most humans can't hear. Though, now days, there aren't many humans to compare his sonar ears to.
"They're on their way out." Eli said.
"Thomas, bring the car around. Slowly." I tell Thomas through my walkie. He's not the best driver but he's worse at controlling his nervousness and would ruin the entire operation. So we've stuck him with driver duty. Which I'm still not sure was a good idea seeing as though Thomas is driving abnormally slow and has caught the attention of one of Them.
"Eli." I don't have to specify what I want because he's already on it. He runs as fast as he can through the trees making sure to make as much rustling noise as he can to try and defer It's attention from Thomas's driving. It works and Thomas is able to stop the truck outside the door so that Keith, Brandon, and Harlan can load it up.
"Trouble's coming." Eli warns me.
"Guys move out, TC." They nod in my general direction and start to move faster with the last of our stolen goods. Just as blue and red lights flash around the corner toward our truck Thomas jumps out of the car and whispers, "Wait," and makes his way inside the store.
"Thomas what the fuck are you doing? Get back in the car we need you to drive now!" I almost scream into the walkie.
"It'll just take one second." Thomas informs me.
"I'll go get him." John offers.
"No. John you drive. Eli, direct the others. I'll get Thomas." We run across the street, John jumps in the driver's seat and Eli gets shotgun. They drive away as I run inside Cosco.
Cosco sells their grocery items in bulk, which makes it the number one place, my troop, and I rob. We sneak through the back entrance where they keep everything stocked warehouse style. We only have to come here every month, maybe every two months if we're careful.
I spot Thomas in the corner looking intently at something I can't see from here. I pause next to the door way and take a moment to survey my surroundings. There are two workers, twenty-nine shelves, sixteen lights in the ceiling, and three cops that just got out of their cars and are walking this way. I run at Thomas and without stopping, I tackle him and cover his mouth in anticipation of his nervous high-pitched scream. "AHMMMMMMMM"
"Shut up Thomas! Or I'll just knock you out and drag you outta here." Thomas's eyes got wide at my threat. "Okay. Now just follow my lead." I say as I let go of him and look through the shelves to survey how close the authorities are. Just as I was about to sneak around the shelf to the other side of the store I hear, "CLANKALANK CRASH!" I whip my head around and sure enough Thomas had backed into the shelf full of half priced shovels. Time for plan B. Quickly I take out the contacts case and blindly put in the contacts Eli designed to make human eyes look like Their eyes, which have a silver ring around the pupil.
"Thomas, I'm going to create a diversion and I want you to run out the door and through the woods. Just keep going straight, Eli will find you. Go. Now!" I give Thomas a little push and I run across the isles to the other side, and knock a whole shelf of gardening rakes to the floor. In seconds two cops tap me on the shoulder. I turn around and look into the cops' eyes apologetically. Their faces immediately turn from furious to soft friendly faces when they see the silver ring in my eyes.
"It's okay miss, here let us help you pick these up." Cop One says as they bend down to help.
"Thanks guys." I say like the bubble headed teenager I look like. In the corner of my eye I see Thomas sneak out the door and I send a silent prayer to God that Eli finds Thomas.
When they are done putting the rakes on the shelves I say,
"Gee thanks! I'm such a clutz." My heart is pounding in my chest. I hope they can't hear it.
"You mean that body is a clutz." Cop Two corrects me.
"Right, right this body is. I can't tell you how long it's taking me to get accustomed to it. I guess I'm just a slow learner." I say really caking it on.
"Really? How long have you been in that body?"
"About a month." I say hoping a month is a reasonable amount of time to still be adjusting.
" Oh well we've been hear since the first wave arrived. Boy it's amazing to see how much better this world is now that we have taken control of it." I feel my temperature rising as I try not to stab this stupid alien in the heart for saying that.
"Yeah I wish I was here to see the change. Well my mom is probably waiting in the car so I'm going to go. Thanks again." As I walk away, Cop One grabs my arm and looks deeply into my eyes. I try not to freak out when he says, "Be careful walking to your car. We've had a report of some suspicious behavior in these parts. We think it might be the Resistance," still holding on to my arm.
"The Resistance?" I ask trying to see how much they knew about my troop and me.
"Yes. We haven't had any visuals of them but we have been
getting reports of missing things from stores and from houses nearby." He says still studying my face.
"That's scary. Do you really think that there are some humans we haven't gotten too?" He let go of my arm.
"I wouldn't worry too much about this matter miss. We've got it under control now run along." I ran along. I walked out the front of Cosco trying to look nonchalant as the aliens walked past me. Some smiled at me and I forced a smile back. Once outside I stopped and considered my options. I could walk back to head quarters but who knows if those cops would follow me or not. Or I could…
"Lux!" I looked around at the call of my name and in a parking spot sat our truck with John waving at me from the driver's seat. I walked over and got in the back seat. I then counted to make sure we were all present. Everyone, even Thomas, was accounted for. Then I took out the contacts and put them back safely in the compartment of my left boot.
"So what happened?" Thomas asked me. Still pissed at him I said, "My stupid driver ran inside Cosco for no apparent reason risking the entire mission."
"Oh…right." Thomas said hanging his head.
"Oh…right? Why did you do that Thomas? I need to have people on my team that I can trust with anything. And you couldn't just heed my word and stay in the car? What was so important?"
"Neosporin and band-aids. I thought we could use them. I'm
sorry Lux, I just don't think sometimes."
"You know who else doesn't think? The rest of the human population seeing as though now aliens think for them." I get really close to Thomas's face and say, "You're either one of us, or you're one of them. One little mistake can make you one of them for ever Thomas." I turn away from him and look out the window.
"Did you learn anything?" Eli asked.
"I learned that the contacts you made works perfectly. I also learned that the cops don't know much but they have noticed that we've been raiding nearby homes and stores. We need to make a plan as to whether we should stay for awhile longer or get the hell outta here."
"I say we should get the hell outta here." John said looking in the rearview mirror.
"That was quick, why?" I asked.
"Well alien cops are on behind us." I turn around to look out the back window and sure enough there was not only one cop car but two. Their lights aren't flashing but I they are obviously following us.
"Can you loose them John?"
"We're on a two lane road heading into the Arizona desert Captain. So no."
"Right. We'll just keep going and pray they don't have us pull over." At that moment the cop cars started to flash their lights signaling us to pull over. Well that dream was short lived.
