"Negotiation skills," I repeated. "Yes. Indeed we do have something to negotiate. Those children are in peril, and I refuse to do anything until something is done about this immediately."
Snake's face reflected outrage, but I didn't care.
"ET's got some big balls." Snake clapped his hands, pointing at the big guy. "Yo. Renn. Get those kids back. Something's funny with our man Jeff. I suspect he likes kids a little too much. Don't quote me on that, but go get those kids anyway. If he asks, tell him Snake gave the order. If he says no, shoot him."
Reynold chambered a round in his shotgun. "You're the boss."
He marched down the hallway, in pursuit of the scoundrel.
Snake turned his attention to me again. "Now. What's this about you refusing to do anything?"
A woman, apparently, had set out across the base in search of pharmaceuticals for her sick daughter. She needed ibuprofen and antibiotics. Snake wanted me to bring back other things in addition to that, and her.
Pain killers, gauze, rubbing alcohol, a type of insulin that didn't need refrigeration, stop smoking aids, contraceptives.
The storehouse for these items lay on the left side of the base, just a few units down from the dwelling of Tyrone Rockett. I could smell the man in the area, but didn't bother to check.
The woman had walled herself inside this pharmacy. Three Ss'sik'chtokiwij now roved around its exterior, prodding the structure for a way in. I guessed the woman must have figured out enough to block the vents, or the Ss'sik'chtokiwij would have been doing more than trying to get in.
I pushed the talk button on the cel phone. When it didn't work, knocked on the door to get her attention. "Amber Jones?"
Nobody answered. I tried a nearby intercom. "Amber Jones?"
That's when I noticed the camera bubble above the intercom. "Are you...alive? Snake sent me."
No response. "If water was whiskey, then I'd be a diving duck..." I sang.
"Go away," said the voice from the speakers.
I cleared my throat. "I am here to collect pharmaceuticals and escort you back to the others. I understand you have a sick daughter."
A long static filled pause answered me.
"You're one of those things. How do I know your buddies won't eat me the moment I open the door?"
"I'll defend you. I'm bigger than they are."
I took out my doll, showing it to the camera. "I got this for a friend, but she doesn't want it. Would your daughter like it?"
"Go up to the door, and clear those things out. I'll let you in when they're gone."
Sighing, I marched up to the youngsters. "The female in there is Xulrubdan. If you eat her, you'll end up getting sick."
I pointed to the pharmaceutical supply sign. "Do you see that? It's a human sign that means diseased."
The Ss'sik'chtokiwij retreated, one after another.
I'm surprised that worked, but I guess they believed me because I was an adult.
The door slid open, and a pistol barrel poked me in the head. I raised my arms in surrender.
"Hello."
A freckly thirty year old in nursing scrubs, red hair cut in the page boy style. The cartoon character festooned uniform top hinting at a specialty in pediatrics. I recalled passing her on the way out of the base hospital.
She'd been hiding in a `store' similar to the one I'd seen for machine parts, but tidier, to create the impression of antiseptic cleanliness.
A cart full of supplies had already been prepared. It only took a few seconds for her to read the checklist and conclude she had everything. Well, a few special drugs with complicated names they'd run out of, but we had the items on the list. "Let's go."
"I strongly advise you to look sick," I warned. "Specifically, crying and laughing."
She stared. "You're serious."
"I have convinced the others you are ill. That is why they went away."
She somewhat overdid it, stumbling around in zombie fashion, making forced laughs and sobbing like she'd just been released from a mental institution. I added some acting of my own to give the impression of contagious disease.
For a few yards, the Ss'sik'chtokiwij gawked, then hissed like fearful cats, alarmed by our feigned illness. We got left alone.
I calmly urged Amber to scale down her acting a little so we could listen to radio communications as we walked. They had gotten interesting.
"Bad news, boss," a man said. "Someone just shot Groot. They've blown off both manipulator arms."
He got answered by swearing. Snake, obviously. "Don't those assholes understand the concept of a fucking decoy?"
And then, away from the mouthpiece, "Who is it! Who the fuck did it? I want his head on a spike!"
"It's Ziegler, sir. He's off the grid. I've tried contacting him on several bands and with text, but he's not getting any of it."
Snake swore again. It would be tragic if the Lord were in the practice of damning things as frequently as humans requested.
I and Amber made through the barricade undisturbed. Ss'sik'chtokiwij only appeared once or twice, and we drove those away with our act.
The moment I entered the compound, a cluster of guns pointed in my face.
"Don't shoot," Amber scolded. "He just saved my life."
The barrier closed, and I got ushered into the corner of the hallway beyond, under armed guard.
A group of colonists stood in a meeting, apparently an election for leadership, neither Snake nor Reynold present. A light skinned gentleman with effeminate rounded features and close cropped curly hair appeared to be the presiding official.
Amber immediately grabbed some medications and marched down an adjoining hallway, leaving me to stare at the guns, hoping they didn't go off.
By the time I remembered the doll, Amber had already gone.
I asked the men about Rebecca and Timmy, but none knew anything, and Amber had taken the phone I'd been using.
"McClausland isn't the guy we want," the meeting leader said. "I know he has leadership skills and military training, but that don't change the fact he's a cold blooded murderer. We've got him in the brig for that very reason. He can't be trusted. Believe me, you don't want that guy running things."
The man, at least a head shorter than everyone else, paced in front of the group as he spoke. A single jeweled earring, which sparkled from his ear when he spoke or moved around.
Speaking of movement, his baggy tan slacks...not the best thing to wear when running for your life. The all too wide sleeves of his long striped t-shirt, likewise, could easily get caught on something. But who was I to tell him? "I'm not saying I'm the best candidate, Lord knows I'm not. I'm just saying you should pick someone besides him. The guy makes me nervous. I feel like I'm going to end up like Bowen, just speaking out about this."
I surmised that Mclausland had been the barbarian we had witnessed murdering his dissenter in the hallway earlier.
A bony woman with straw colored hair crossed her arms. "Devon, I don't appreciate being forced out my home to live in this little camp. When can we go back to our real living quarters?"
Devon just raised his hands defensively. "You're welcome to leave any time you want, Mrs. Crampton..." He pointed at me. "Just don't be surprised if you see one of those waiting to greet you in your living room."
The stringy haired woman paled when she looked my way. "Bastard."
"Hey, don't hate me for telling the truth. Just calling it as I see it."
"You left a dozen people out there to die. I saw them trying to get in, but you sent them away."
Devon sighed. "Ma'am, we're outnumbered and outgunned. I didn't like McClausland's decision to shut them out either, but I understood it. Believe you me, I understood that one a lot better than...some of the other things he's done.
"Those things are fast, and if we let our guard down for a second, it's curtains for all of us. This isn't East and West Berlin, like you've stated previously. It's a fucking fort. We're in a zoo where all the lions and tigers are loose, tigers that won't stop coming, no matter how many bullets you fire at them."
"What about Averell? He wasn't outside the wall. Not at first."
"Averell was part of that cult. He and Nathan were sabotaging the walls, and just about everything else to let those damn things come in and have a party. Something had to be done. Honestly, they fought the decision a lot less hard than you have. Mr. Meeker said he was happy to give his life for the Suckwataj or whatever he said." He made `cukoo' motions around his ear.
[0000]
The woman had nothing to say to this.
A cult.
Aiding the Ss'sik'chtokiwij.
I briefly worried that Ssorzechola's worms had somehow survived, maintaining her cult, feeding bodies to whatever remained of her carcass. It did me no good to ponder such things, for I had no way of proving nor disproving it.
"Has anyone checked on Marichek?" asked the man with the silly mustache.
Devon shook his head. "We got the thing off his face. It took four guys, but we got it off. Wish I could tell you he was better..." He shrugged. "Man, that's all I know. One of our docs is messing with the creature, trying to see if maybe there's something we can use against these things."
A man with a potato shaped head and woolly hair spoke up. "As far as I'm concerned, Weideca is still the head of this base."
"He runs it..." Devon admitted. "But where is he right now? Do you really think he can help us beat those things?"
The lumpy headed, wide jawed man frowned. "What are you suggesting, then? Snake?"
Snake just so happened to be entering the hallway at the moment. "The answer is yes, and the question is, `Am I beautiful?'" He let out a braying laugh. "What's this, elections?"
Devon frowned. "We just had a question regarding leadership."
"Man, let's just focus on staying alive, and figure out that governmental shit when we know for a fact that we'll be alive enough to use it."
The crowned murmured in assent.
Snake took some folded up papers out of his pocket, unfolding them on the floor. "All right, I got an idea. I want this to be democratic, so I'm just going to describe it to you, and see who's onboard. In case you haven't noticed, we've acquired a new asset." He pointed to me, prompting everyone to stare. I would have smiled and waved, but didn't know what he was roping me into.
He unveiled an ambitious plan: Me assisting a repairman in fixing a transmitter so a distress message could be sent. I would use a special program on a phone to track down the PDT (Personal Data Transmitter) implants of the colonists that had gotten lost in the plant.
His supplemental plan: Send people out the front and around the outside of the base to snipe at any Ss'sik'chtokiwij out in the mud, working their way in. Explosives would be employed. Then they would recapture the plant.
Oh well, I thought. Humans often liked to have ridiculously high goals, in order to achieve great secondary ones.
As he described all of this, I tried talking to the man a few times, but, alas, too busy making plans to pay me any mind.
The lights flickered out for a few moments. Dalgren, the guy with the mustache, said, "Damn things are chewing through the power cables."
Fixing the wires became an additional goal in the already elaborate plan.
I, of course, would be an integral part of these schemes, like it or not.
Snake marched up to me, gesturing for a couple of my guards to lower their weapons. "So. What do you think, ET? I mean, Ernie?"
I sighed. "With the exception of murdering so many of my kind, your plans seem fine. I am still concerned about the children. Did you get them away from Jeff?"
"Yes. We took care of it. And without any bloodshed, I might add."
He put a hand on my shoulder plate. "Relax, man. We'll take good care of them. I used to have two of my own. You can trust me."
I felt nervous about the situation, but nodded anyway, deciding to take the man at his word.
He led me to that gate I'd used to go after the chicken, introducing me to three men and two women:
The mustached Dalgren.
Mosby, a clean shaven, muscular man in a gray three piece suit, accentuated, bizarrely, with a cape. At his sides hung a pair of glistening brass plated guns with ivory handles stuck in overwrought black leather holsters, a cutlass in a sheath beside them.
Hines. Narrow face, curly hair cut into a Mohawk like those cartoons about punk rocker sheep, clad in a jacket from the Steelers football clan.
Culpepper: Black hair, glasses, crow's feet around the eyes, army clothes that fit as poor as a bunny in a lion costume.
Frye: Jumpsuit clad, brown skinned, black hair tied back in a ponytail.
"Now that that's settled..." He handed me a wielding torch and some chemicals. "Here's the plan. I want you to set some fires down this hallway, to drive your buddies away. Dalgren's going to shut off the sprinklers in the area. That should simplify things a little."
He passed me a case of explosives. "I want you to close off the hallways so we only have one way in or out. Don't worry about detonating them, just set them up in a spot where it looks like the whole wall will come down."
A pair of men pulled the door aside to let me out.
Right in front of the threshold, we found a body:
Large, bearded, in overalls. Reynold, the children's guardian.
A switchblade had been rammed through his throat, blood spreading around him in an enormous pool.
I watched with sadness and disgust as a pair of Ss'sik'chtokiwij grabbed the man by his legs, dragging his corpse down a tunnel.
Snake swore, drawing a pistol. "I'll deal with this. You go on ahead. Hines, Dalgren, Mosby and the ladies will back you up from the rear."
"What about you?" I asked.
"I'll be along in a minute. Right now, me and Mr. Pinkston are going to have a talk."
With that, he left.
Being the official pack animal, I ended up shouldering the burden of a large military dufflebag loaded with chemicals, supplies, and a second case of explosives.
In one claw I held the torch. The other held an explosives case.
All incredibly heavy, but my Lord said if the centurion forced you to go with him one mile, you went with him two. Plus it built muscles.
Mosby...carried the weight of his vanity.
Dooka click.
Dooka click.
A wielding torch comes with a built in spark maker, harmless when the fuel knob is off. Yet another object to mindlessly fidget with, like bubble wrap.
The moment the doors closed, Dalgren flipped a latch on the end of his boot and actually removed part of his foot, typing something into the detached portion.
"Excuse me, sir," I asked him. "Are you an android?"
Dalgren laughed. "Sometimes I feel like one."
He knocked on his leg, making a hollow sound. "Lost it in a tunnel collapse a few months ago."
He gestured to the exposed blade that served as his foot. "You know people actually dance on these?"
A computer had been built into the detached foot piece, which he stared at intently.
"What's that?"
His mustache curled up in a smirk. "Alien detector."
He made a show of waving it around in front of me. "Hmmm...I'm getting a strong reading...from somewhere in this area...wonder where it's coming from?" Then he frowned. "You're going to make it a bitch to detect the other ones."
Mosby handed me a green armband with a Velcro strap. "Here. Wear this." The dandy then straightened his meticulously styled hair
I strapped the band on my arm. "Does this make me a colonist?"
"No," both men said at the same time.
Seating himself on a shipping container, Dalgren unscrewed his leg and popped it off, showing me a secret compartment containing a pistol and a pack of cigars.
Like a children's toy, a section of the plastic facing rotated and snapped into place, transforming his leg into a combination prosthetic and gun holster. "Built that myself. Ain't it cool?"
"It's interesting."
Dalton stuck a cigar in his mouth and lit it, taking a few puffs while he screwed his leg back on.
Hines stroked the dark wool that served as his goatee, speaking as slow as his face was long. "We safe so far?"
"Nothing but the `alien colonist,'" said Dalgren.
"Good."
"I really think we're living in the Endtimes," Culpeper told the only other woman on our team. "If you look at all the tribulations in the bible, and compare them to what's happening in the world, and here...Jesus has got to be coming soon. Don't you think so?"
"I'm Hindu, you know."
Instead of acknowledging her tactlessness, and trying to build evangelical bridges, Culpeper said, "I've actually been reading about Hinduism. I just love studying about different religions, their history, their culture...I'm just fascinated by all of that. You know, some of my best friends are Hindu..."
Frye groaned. "With a mouth as big as yours, I can't imagine why."
"Now ladies..." Hines scolded.
Frye glanced at Dalgren. "Remind me again, why does this beer wench have to tag along with us?"
I'm guessing Culpeper worked at the local bar.
[0001]
"Not everyone wants to volunteer for a suicide mission. Which reminds me. We need to keep our lip buttoned out here. Can the theological debate for when we get back behind the walls. Those things have no eyes, so their other senses are so highly tuned that they can hear a mouse farting at the other end of the hallway."
Hines slowly shook his head. "I still don't get it. What makes them think we can re-take that whole big processing complex? Even with Ernie over there...To me, it just doesn't make sense."
Mosby twirled one of his guns like a movie gunslinger. "Not to worry. When the time comes, we'll hang their oozing carcasses in rows from here to the processing station, until it looks like one big alien meat locker."
I shuddered at the thought, but said nothing, for I felt skeptical of his claim.
Dooka click.
Dooka click.
I took the lead down the corridor, Dalgren and the other two men following a yard behind, the women at the rear.
I sensed the Ss'sik'chtokiwij lurking around us, though I couldn't estimate numbers. I spotted two ahead of us, and noticed motion around a corner.
It took a full minute for Dalton to pick up on the same indicators.
"Everybody shush!" he cried in a stage whisper. "No sudden moves, no noise!"
"Ow!" Culpeper cried out in pain, pulling off her uniform top. "What the hell?"
"Shelly," Frye remarked. "It's really not that hot. Save your stripper routine for the bar."
"Don't make fun!" she slapped at her bra straps. "Something's burning me!"
I glanced up. A pair of young Ss'sik'chtokiwij crawled beneath the ceiling grating.
"Hey!" I hissed to them. "Watch where you're salivating!"
"Sorry," a lightly colored one blurted. "I didn't realize that one was yours."
For no justifiable reason, Mosby whipped out both of his brass plated weapons, filling both young Ss'sik'chtokiwij with holes. Their blood melted through the supports, and they crashed to the ground in front of me, dead.
I stared, crying at this wanton destruction of Ss'sik'chtokiwij life. "You didn't have to do that."
Mosby holstered his weapons. "Actually, I did."
Dalton gave him an uneasy glance. "I'd unholster those guns again, double quick."
We reached an intersection. I placed a charge to a wall, as instructed.
A young Ss'sik'chtokiwij with pollen-like texturing on its shell scampered by to watch.
"Shoo!" I cried, waving her away. "It's not safe!"
Pollen didn't understand. She actually came closer.
"No no!" I shouted, gesticulating frantically to the bomb. "Bad! Danger! Boom boom!"
When she still failed to understand, I turned on the torch, giving her a threatening blast.
The Ss'sik'chtokiwij shrieked in surprise, running off.
"Thank you, Lord." I set a charge on the other side, and, as I did, Dalgren pushed buttons on a video game controller plugged into his prosthetic foot piece.
For a moment, I thought he merely played Crash Bandicoot or something, but after checking my work, he pointed to a section of corridor, barking, "Everybody get back! Fire in the hole!"
A mountain of debris thundered down across the passage with a deafening bang.
Dalgren studied the ceiling to make sure the detonation didn't bring the roof crashing down on our heads.
"It'll hold," Frye urged.
"Fire in the hole!" Dalgren repeated as he took down the other passage.
One of my aunts had been hiding in the ceiling. She shrieked as exploding debris crushed her to death.
The head that poked out from the rubble had a cross-like marking so similar to Aquila that I nearly broke down right there.
Frye checked the destroyed section. "Integrity is still good."
No spraying water. No flashes of light from damaged electrical cables. They knew what they were doing.
The blasts took care of everything except the two remaining Ss'sik'chtokiwij ahead of us.
In spite of the explosion (or maybe because of it) they had come up the hallway to investigate.
The men drew weapons, but I raised a claw. "Wait! Let me take care of this!"
I approached the two with wary haste, more afraid of what the humans could do to them than what they could do to my companions. "You two must leave now! It's not safe! They have many more Boom Boom Things! Already they have killed Ss'sik'chtokiwij!"
"Let me at those humans!" growled one with a shell covered all over with tiny quill-like growths. "I will stop the booms right now!"
I had briefly shut off the fuel to my torch, but now had to turn it back on. "You don't understand..." I clicked the igniter. "They have deadly tools. Like this."
I gave the Ss'sik'chtokiwij porcupine a warning blast just inches from her face.
"Fire!" she shrieked, running away with her tail between her legs.
The other one, with a shell speckled like a spotted owl, only stared at me in wonderment. "Wow! You control fire!"
Before we could properly converse, Mosby stepped around me, pointed his gun at my aunt's head, pulled the trigger.
He kept firing until she stopped moving.
"Stop making love to them. This is war."