Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments (29 page)

Captain Wilkes orders Catlin and me to weave a cloak around the caravan, and so we do. The captain is impressed, though I can feel him trying not to show it.

We get to the site, which looks like a storage unit for army trucks and jeeps.

“Doesn’t look like much of a facility,” I say.

“That’s the idea,” the captain says.

We gather in front of a chain-link fence. The colonel orders some men to use the wire cutters.

“Their security wall is about three feet inside the fence,” he says.

We squeeze through the opening in the fence and get to the wall. It’s high and thick. It looks a lot like the one at Lord Vertenomous’s, but it might be even stronger. I can feel that more than one alien made it.

This is a really bad time for me to travel to another moment, but I do. It’s the world turned gray, ash floating everywhere. We live here, at the missile facility, Catlin and Michael and me. Others live here with us, but not many. We live here because it’s easier to defend ourselves. Outside, the world is poisoned. The water isn’t drinkable and there isn’t much food and people are killing each other for what little there is. A lot of people want what we have, our supplies. They’re constantly trying to breach our security. We’ve killed many of them, and many of our own have died, too.

The aliens are gone. I feel that. But the world is dark. It’s so dark that it’s always night. Fierce winds whip at us from all sides when we step out of one of the buildings. And it’s cold, so cold I can’t remember what it’s like to be warm.

“Jesse?” Catlin says.

I’m back in the present moment, standing in front of the wall. Catlin looks worried. “Is everything okay?”

I nod, even though it’s a lie. Everything is most definitely not okay. Because I know —
I know
— that the future I just saw, the future with the nuclear fall, is not the future that leads to me and Catlin and Cat in our cozy home. The nuclear winter doesn’t clear up after a few years. That world stays dark.

But I still don’t know how to stop it. I try again to trace my steps back from the future with Catlin and Cat, but that future feels like a dream. I see us there; I don’t see the way back to here.

“Colonel Hamilton,” I say, “this won’t work. The nuclear fall won’t work.”

Everyone stares at me. The colonel’s expression hardens. “What’s this now?”

“I saw it. Just now. I saw a glimpse of the future.”

“Seeing the future is not a talent, son. And this is not the time for this discussion.”

“I saw that we make nuclear winter.”

“You couldn’t see,” Colonel Hamilton says. “Your nerves are getting to you.”

“Were there aliens?” Captain Wilkes says.

Colonel Hamilton glares at him.

“No,” I admit. “The aliens weren’t there.”

Captain Wilkes looks at Colonel Hamilton. “Sorry, sir, but we in the House of Minerva believe the Warrior Spirit has the sight. But I’m satisfied. I’d take winter over the aliens any day.”

“That’s enough!” Colonel Hamilton snaps. “I don’t believe the boy can see the future. And I certainly don’t believe he’s the Warrior Spirit! But it doesn’t matter. We’ve got a mission to accomplish, and by the gods we’ll accomplish it.” He swings his rifle toward Catlin and me and tells us to break the wall
now.

I want to argue some more, to make him see that there has to be another option, but I know it won’t do any good. Catlin and I join. The wall isn’t weak, but I see how to get through it, and I can tell that Catlin does, too. It takes us five minutes to crack it, and once we do, it’s easy to punch a hole. There’s no denying that our power together has increased.

The colonel sends his scouts through the hole in the wall to check out the compound. They mindspeak their reports, which I pretend not to hear: There is a small number of aliens in a barracks at the other end of the compound. Apart from that, the place is deserted.

Colonel Hamilton leads the way across the grounds and past several offices and barracks. Suddenly I sense two alien soldiers nearby; they’re sleeping in the plane hangar, which is probably how the scouts missed them.

They must sense us, too, because they wake up in time to raise an alarm but not in time to fight. I kill one of them, and Sam, Michael, and five of the colonel’s soldiers manage to kill the other. None of us are killed or even wounded.

Captain Wilkes says, “So it’s true. You can kill like they kill. It’s a hell of a talent.”

I can feel the colonel’s disapproval even as he’s thinking how glad he is that we killed the aliens so quickly. He’s thinking I’m more danger than asset and once this mission is over he’s going to rethink his decision about me. I’m tempted to tell him the feeling’s mutual, but I keep quiet.

We follow the colonel to an office in the plane hangar. The office hides a second room behind it, this one with a steel door and a retina scanner. A computer takes a scan of the colonel’s retina before a panel pops out with a keyboard. The door slides open after he enters a code. Then he uses a key for the elevator.

“We go down in two groups,” Colonel Hamilton says. “Captain Wilkes, you stay here with your men and guard the doors. Jesse, Catlin, Sam, and Sam’s friend — you hold back and come down with the second group.”

The first group is all soldiers, plus Captain Sanderson and a sergeant whose name I forget. The colonel disappears through the doors with the first group.

This is wrong,
I mindspeak to Sam.

Shut up,
she says.

Catlin is right. Destroying the world to save it — to save us — is wrong.

Not destroy. Wound,
Sam mindspeaks.

It’s going to be worse than Colonel Hamilton thinks. I’ve seen it.

We have no choice.
She is getting frustrated with me. She is a soldier following orders. You don’t question orders.

We do have a choice. I’ve seen a future where the world has not been wounded. It’s our world, our beautiful, green, healthy world, and the aliens are gone. It has to be a future where we didn’t fire the missiles.

And I think back to the man at the circus who might or might not have been a man, and his saying I’d make a choice to begin or end all choices, and I know this must be the choice. It must be here.

And if you’re wrong?
Sam’s question stabs at me.

Just then the elevator door opens and one of Colonel Hamilton’s soldiers motions us to the elevator. We can hear aliens running in their totally uncoordinated way toward the hangar. Captain Wilkes and a couple of his men prepare to hold them off for as long as they can, which I’m afraid won’t be very long.

“They run like girls,” Michael says.

“This girl could outrun you,” Sam says. “And if I can’t, I know I can outfight you, so just cut the sexist crap.”

“Sorry,” he says.

Sam turns to me. “This vision you had, the one where the earth isn’t destroyed? You didn’t happen to see what we did to get us there, did you?”

“It’s not really a vision. It’s more like walking ahead in time. Except I don’t actually walk. And it’s not actually ahead.”

“Gods,” she mutters. “The Warrior must have been really hard up when he chose you. Can you tell us what we’re supposed to do next or not?”

The elevator drops. It goes down fast and far.

“I’ll have to show you.”

This is a big lie, of course. But I’m desperate, and this at least buys me time.

The elevator door opens again. This time it opens to a large room filled with computer stations. Off to one side is a screen that takes up most of one wall. Auditorium seats are in front of it.

It’s the room I saw in one of my travels to the future, which is now the present — the one in which I put Colonel Hamilton in a choke hold, the one where he says I’ve destroyed us all. What if he’s right and I destroy everything? What if I make the wrong choice and end all choices?

Colonel Hamilton is at a computer station. He’s typing in codes. The large screen on the wall flashes, and we see a room of missiles. They’re white with gray metal tops. They look tall.

We hear gunfire above us: Captain Wilkes and his men guarding the doors. Colonel Hamilton barely registers the noise. He just orders a few soldiers to guard the elevator door.

“I have to reset the destination codes,” the colonel says. “I need you two to cloak what I’m doing. The aliens are trying to override my commands from upstairs.” His brow is dotted with sweat, the only sign of his struggles. The sound of the elevator going up the shaft startles us all. I realize that the gunfire stopped a while ago.

“Looks like we’ll have company soon,” Sam says.

The soldiers by the door get into position. I use the distraction to mindspeak to Catlin, to tell her that she needs to read the colonel. We need those codes.

She can’t know what I have in mind — I’m not even sure yet myself — but she doesn’t hesitate. I feel her pushing into him. The colonel’s hands move up and down the keyboard almost like he’s playing it. He’s very focused. He doesn’t notice the soldiers crouching and raising their guns. And he doesn’t notice Catlin reading him.

Catlin sends me a message telling me she thinks she has the codes to reset destinations.

Think?

It’s not a science.

“Keep those things back for three minutes,” Colonel Hamilton orders over his shoulder, “and we’ll teach those green devils a thing or two.”

A part of me is with him. A part of me thinks he’s right. Nuclear fall, nuclear winter, we have to get rid of the aliens. But it’s the wrong future. If I know anything, I know that. I choose.

Catlin mindspeaks,
I have faith in you, Jesse.

I show everyone the world I saw, the future that the bombs will create. Nuclear winter. A dead planet and a dying human race. A slow and painful and sad ending to life on Earth.

“We can’t do this,” I say.

“Shoot him!” the colonel orders.

The soldiers look from the colonel to me and back again. But no one shoots.

“There’s another way,” I say. “We attack who we should be attacking. We attack the aliens.”

“This is not up for debate!” The colonel shouts. He turns back to his keyboard. “Shoot the girl,” he says.

The guns swing toward Catlin, and that’s when I do it: I launch myself at Colonel Hamilton, pull him out of his chair, and put him in a choke hold. It’s a good one. It’s like what I saw when I traveled to this future that is quickly becoming the past.

Some of the guns swing back toward me. The colonel can’t speak, but he can mindspeak.

Shoot her!
he orders. I put his mind in a choke hold.

All the guns swing toward Catlin again, but still no one shoots. No one wants to be the first to do it.

Sam and Michael take advantage of their hesitation to swing their rifles toward the colonel, whose face is beet red.

“Anyone shoots, a lot of people are going to die,” Sam says. “Starting with the colonel.”

The soldiers are confused. Some of the rifles swing toward Sam and Michael, but no one fires.

“I have the Spirit of the Warrior in me,” I say. “I’m doing what has to be done. That’s all I’m doing. I’m doing what has to be done.”

Total crap? Truth? Don’t know. Don’t care at that point. I just need them to remain confused enough to hesitate.

The elevator starts back down.

“Guns toward the door, soldiers,” Sam orders.

“Guns toward the door,” I echo.

And the soldiers spin around. They point their guns toward the elevator.

I join with Catlin. She can see my plan more easily that way than if I tried to mindspeak it. Quickly she changes the destinations of the missiles. She looks at me and holds my gaze for one long second before she pushes the button to launch the missiles.

The ground shudders, and we can feel them launch. The screen on the wall shows them flying out of the ground and toward the vastness of space. Thirty-six of them. Our last hope.

The colonel goes limp in my arms. I lower him to the ground and take his gun from his holster.

The elevator door opens at the same moment, and guns fire. The aliens stop the bullets. Rifles fly out of some soldiers’ hands. I send wave after wave of energy at them to block their attacks and give our men and women a chance to recover, to fight back.

Behind us on the big screen, the missiles make their way toward the ships out in space. Thirty-six missiles on their way. Thirty-six little flashes of light. They’re there, and then they aren’t. In a second, every missile disappears. Thirty-six dots of light, like candles on a birthday cake, blown out in one frickin’ breath.

“You’ve destroyed us,” the colonel chokes out from the floor, his eyes glued to the screen. “You’ve signed our death warrant.”

I turn to Catlin, but she doesn’t even see me. She just keeps looking at the screen like she’s trying to will the missiles back on. But she can’t. We’ve made our choices. This is where they’ve led us.

Then something none of us expects happens. The aliens stop fighting. The Sanginians put a shield up around themselves for protection, but they don’t attack. Sam orders the soldiers to cease fire. Most of them don’t have guns to fire anymore anyway. I think these aliens were more prepared for the guns. I think the aliens have been sharing notes on our attacks, which surprises me. These aren’t hunters. They’re soldiers.