CHAPTER 10

Ruby Engels hummed to herself as she waved the vacuum cleaner attachment across the drapes. She knew she could never drown out the machine, but she did it anyway.

Part of the reason was this was consistent with what she always did. She had taken job as a cleaning maid at the Visitors' Los Angeles Security Headquarters in Sierra Madre, just east of Pasadena, two and a half months ago. Just days after starting, Ruby had endeared herself to her co-workers for her cheerful disposition and proficiency at doing her work despite being over sixty years old.

Of course, because her erstwhile neighbor Daniel Bernstein worked as a ranking officer of the Visitor Friends movement at Security Headquarters as well, she had to disguise herself as a crone who looked like she had an unfortunate tendency to pile on her makeup. She also used a fake name – Madeleine Lichtman – to further throw Daniel or anybody else who could possibly know her off the scent.

But maintaining a front wasn't the only reason why Ruby was humming those tunes.

She was doing it also to keep the wolves of worry at bay.

And she imagined she could feel them gnawing at her limbs in a literal sense.

She couldn't help it.

She knew that the local resistance group, of which she was a part, was in great danger. The Visitors had already responded in part by broadcasting a fake version of the previous night's announcement program. But Ruby knew that a more violent reprisal was inevitable.

After all, she'd seen first-hand just how brutal the Visitors can be.

She was at the hospital the night before, in disguise as an elderly woman wearing a tear-away prop cast on her leg, moved around on a wheelchair by another member of the group, Father Andrew Doyle. And she wasn't just a witness; she was an active participant, wielding a shotgun and exchanging fire with Visitor Shock Troopers. Purely through some unknowable providence, none of her fellow rebels got hurt or killed during this raid, even against the battle-tested alien soldiers.

But the fact that two of their group – Fred King, a doctor and family man who reluctantly agreed to provide the plans to the hospital, and Juliet Parrish, the young woman who led her group – were not with them when they made their escape gave her the most reason to worry.

No one knew what happened to either Fred or Julie. They could have been killed, or they may have been captured. And if they had been captured, it was inevitable that the Visitors would interrogate them, probably torture them, therefore making it just a matter of time before the aliens discovered where the rebel hideout was.

Not knowing is always the worst.

Before she left the hideout for her morning shift, Mike Donovan had already decided they had waited long enough for either Julie or Fred to check in from one of the resistance's network of safehouses. They had to assume the worst and prepare to leave their headquarters and find a new one.

Ruby stopped humming as the unmistakable sound of a large number of quick-marching boots competed with the noise of the vacuum cleaner. She turned the machine off, separated the drapes she was cleaning, and opened the window, craning her neck towards the source of the sounds.

Maybe two dozen Shock Troopers were marching out of the building, moving quickly towards a shuttle parked twenty yards away. All of them held laser rifles in their hands, and all of them wore their black combat armor vests and black helmets.

"All squads, prepare for deployment!" said one of the officers standing by the shuttle. "Brian's shuttle's ETA is two minutes and counting. We leave for the rebels' headquarters as soon as he arrives!"

Ruby almost vomited from horror.

I have to tell the others!