Critical Dawn (11 page)

He’d set them free, but what they did with that freedom was their choice.

Charlie turned his attentions back to the east road, what used to be Highway 219. A twisting vine that looked like a serpent choked the white sign on the side of the road. The numbers were fading but remained.

Five minutes on their journey out of the town and he heard footsteps racing up behind him. Pip growled by Denver’s side, but they didn’t stop. Just kept on walking. Eventually, it was Maria who spoke first, as Charlie’d expected. Ben wasn’t the type to admit his mistakes. He and Ethan were still trying to find where they fit into the world.

Maria already knew. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About back there. It’s all so confusing.”

“Forget about it,” Charlie said. “No need to say anything else.” He spared her the humiliation of asking to rejoin them. They had nowhere else to go. This would be a good lesson for them. They’d now discovered an important lesson in trust.

Trust no one.

Layla gripped the silver handles on either side of the hover-bike, turning her head against the wind chill. The feeling of weightlessness contrasted the aching in her fingers as they shot through the air over the densely vegetated land. Each trip helped her get a better idea of how the machines operated.

The controls were quite simple. Moving the handlebars forwards raised the bike. A twist grip on the right handle increased speed. The alien rider would twist the left grip when they wanted to hover. All gentle movements. It was like being on a huge hair dryer and sounded a little like one too.

She looked over her shoulder at the disappearing camp and farmed area beyond. From this height, it looked like the world had been split in two. One side, a brown cloak with an orange tinge; the other a sea of green with occasional smashed ruins peeping above the canopy. The derelict remnants of her former world.

Layla wondered if Gregor and his gang were nearing their expiration date. Manual labor and resource management was good, but it was nothing the croatoans couldn’t do themselves once they picked up on the implemented systems. She felt a little safer as long as the improvements and tweaks kept yielding results based on her scientific knowledge of the species.

She’d actually found it easier than she’d originally thought. It was pointless fighting a superior force, so improving conditions of the captured survivors provided a justification in her own mind.

Augustus appreciated Layla and told her she was the brains of the outfit, although he’d disparagingly called her Doctor Mengele when he was in one of his melancholic moods and cackled at her reaction from behind his weird mask.

Layla peered over the croatoan’s shoulder at the tablet. The green ‘v’ that indicated the bike’s position was nearing the group of red dots. The alien twisted the left grip to hover. The bike pulled around above a small clearing.

Surrounding branches and leaves rocked and rustled in the downdraft created by the three descending vehicles. A rabbit ran from the clearing followed by loose twigs blown away by the force of the hover-bike’s thrust.

The croatoans dismounted after the bikes settled and drew their brain pistols. That was Gregor’s nickname for them. He could always be relied upon for his subtlety.

They each keyed in something on their wrist devices. They weren’t checking the time; croatoans had no concept of the human way of measuring it. The wrist devices controlled appearance. All three suits and helmets took on a disruptive camouflage pattern of brown, green, and cream.

An alien clicked free a tablet from the front of a bike and held it toward Layla. She took it, holding the screen away from the sunlight now poking through the clouds, giving the mossy clearing a slight luminous feel.

A blue arrow marked their position, and as she turned, it did the same like a spinning compass, pointing in the direction of the dim red spots.

“Right guys, follow me.”

She led the way into the dark forest, picking her way through the damp undergrowth. After a hundred yards, the gap on the tablet closed to half. At least they hadn’t landed right next to their intended targets, although the hover-bikes would’ve been spotted or heard by anyone above ground.

Layla glanced ahead for any clues, a fresh-broken twig, footprints on the wet, soft forest surface, a scrap of clothing on a thorn bush, anything to indicate a recent presence. The unfarmed landscape was increasingly turning into rainforest typically associated with the southern hemisphere. She wondered what conditions would be like in the Amazon.

A group of noisy birds fled from close proximity with a chorus of exotic squawks. Layla crouched and turned. The three croatoans ducked behind individual trees. Hover-bikes hummed overhead. She caught a glimpse of two between a gap in the trees powering through the air high above alongside each other.

She waved the croatoans alongside and pointed at the tablet then toward a lighter area in the distance. “Over there. Might be the remains of a small town, highway, or something like that.”

One of the aliens nodded and gently pushed her forward.

Proceeding with caution, with croatoans on either side, Layla picked up a beaten track, worn into the ground, running toward the target area. It wasn’t surprising that humans would be taking similar routes. Land, or at least cover, was becoming less and less available as the continent transformed into a vast area of alien agriculture.

The places left alone were the concrete jungles. The last she saw was Nashville, now transformed into a slimy green outcrop. Layla felt like Juan Crisóstomo Nieto discovering the lost city of Kuelap. The conducive climate of thick, moist air had made conditions perfect for a quick colonization of plants and trees. Whatever the harvesters didn’t chew up and spit out, nature took advantage of, regaining its stronghold.

At the edge of the tree line, Layla paused. The forest floor gradually turned into slippery concrete. Ahead was a main street of a small town. Thick vines climbed the buildings. Ivy sprawled over the walls. Most shop front windows were smashed, probably during the mini ice age. Wooden doors had rotted from the top and bottom, a couple creaking in the breeze. PVC ones were covered in black and green-speckled mold, their windows dulled and dirty. Several vehicles dotted along the street, all at various stages of decay, rusting away to become dark red shells.

The road was still visible through the weeds and ferns that popped and spread through the fractured surface. It led a hundred yards back into a forested area.

Layla checked the tablet. The signals came from dead ahead. At the far end of the street by one of the larger buildings, a dumpster, which resembled a large plant-pot stuffed with weeds, marked the likely signal source.

“Okay. It’s right along there. How do you want to play this?” she said.

One of the croatoans pointed to himself and another then slowly started advancing. Layla and the other alien waited.

They moved from rusted vehicle to doorway to plant. Moving a few yards at a time, covering each other as they headed along the street. When they reached halfway, the alien next to Layla clicked a few times and followed the others.

As she wasn’t armed, Layla followed behind, using the alien’s body as cover. She let out a small yelp after falling to one knee, her foot sliding on a clump of loose moss. The croatoan span around, aimed at her, its helmet almost blinding as a ray of sun reflected toward her. After a short moment, it held out an arm, and Layla pulled herself up. They continued forwards.

It wasn’t quite as bad as her college field trips. Layla was always treated like the ugly duckling. Teased for being a geek and marginalized by her peers because her theories went against the conventional wisdom of the lecturers. The more she studied human behavior and became a victim of their spite, the more she hated humanity and realized it was on the wrong path. Her parents were an exception, but the ice age took them quickly. At least the croatoans didn’t judge, tease, or bully her.

The two aliens ahead stood behind a truck yards away from the dumpster. They sprang out from their position and behind the dumpster in their strange, bouncy style. Layla edged to one side for a better view. They headed for a side alley.

She heard a twanging noise. Something flicked into the street.

The two croatoans froze, looked at each other.

A huge eruption followed a blinding flash of light.

Layla flew backwards, skidding across the road surface. Small chunks of debris hit her body and face. The sound of masonry dropping, glass breaking, and a booming echo through the buildings deafened her.

The alien pulled her up. She found it difficult to balance, tried to focus and patted herself down. They were surrounded in a veil of light brown dust. Rays of sun tried to break through it.

Her ears rang with a high-pitched tone. The croatoan clicked in an urgent tone and pulled her toward the dumpster, pointing its weapon from side to side.

Layla squinted and blinked. The dust stung her eyes. She coughed and swallowed, trying to clear her dry throat.

They came across the bottom half of a croatoan leg, boot still attached. Close by, half a broken visor rested in the weeds. An arm protruded from a pile of rubble.

The street became clearer as the dust settled. One of the lead scouts was still intact, slumped against a brick wall in a mangled shape. Its suit had returned to its former gray color, ripped in various places around the armor plates. The helmet visor was splintered, punctured in two places.

She felt the grip release on her shoulder. The alien dropped to one knee, bowed its head, and clicked more slowly. It appeared to be grieving. Layla hadn’t seen this kind of emotion before, although she’d never witnessed one being killed in front of another.

Her opinion of croatoans since being recruited by Augustus had gradually grown to a solid appreciation. They were pragmatic. Working in small teams to achieve their objectives, never being led astray to carry out petty injustices or wasting time debating their moves. The aliens had a clear focus on the big picture.

An old human saying was look after the little things and the big things will take care of themselves. The croatoans tackled
things
in the opposite direction. So far, it was working out.

Layla sighed and put her hand on the alien’s shoulder. The rhythm of its sounds increased, going from something similar to the tick of a grandfather clock to a fast, dripping tap. It stood up, holstered its weapon, and grabbed Layla’s ponytail, forcing her head down to the side of its hip.

“What the hell are you doing?” she said.

“Hu-man,” it croaked.

“Get off me. I’m on your side.”

It ignored Layla and started dragging her toward the forest. She stumbled over plants and debris, trying to maintain its pace while keeping balance.

They crashed through the undergrowth, back in the direction of the hover-bikes. Her legs caught on weeds. The croatoan curled an arm around her chest and ripped her free.

“Please. Why are you doing this?”

The top of her head ached from the constant yanking. She staggered alongside, and they reached the clearing. The croatoan wrestled her onto the back of his hover-bike and raised a finger.

She nodded. “I won’t do a thing. I’ll help you report it. None of this was your fault … our fault.”

The engine started with a roar, and the alien thrust the bars forward. They shot up to an unusually high altitude faster than she’d ever seen the bikes move. They were usually graceful and steady. The croatoan twisted the right grip fully back, and they surged forward, increasing to a dizzying speed, the trees below merging into a green blur.

Layla clung on for her life. Wind blasted against her face. The seat vibrated below her, and she yelped as they occasionally bounced like a jet-ski.

The warehouses quickly came into view.

They dipped like a shooting arrow near the end of its arc, heading straight for the square. The buildings grew in size by every second. She felt herself pressing against the alien because of the angle of descent.

At the last moment, as Layla feared some kind of mad emergency landing, the croatoan twisted the left grip, and the bike shuddered to a hovering halt. It calmly pulled back the handlebars, and the bike smoothly descended to the end of the line in the square.

The croatoan ignored Layla, dismounted, and quickly walked to a barrack warehouse. She stood up and took a few deep breaths and rubbed her hands together to stop them shaking.

Alex raised her hand from the chocolate factory entrance. She walked across to the parked bikes. “Is everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Layla put her arm around her, leaned on her as they walked back toward Gregor’s office. “They’re changing, Alex. Is Gregor about?”

“He’s chatting to Mr. Augustus, something about new targets.”

Gregor grabbed a forty-year-old bottle of whiskey from his kitchen cupboard. He’d intended to open it when celebrating something. Appeasing Augustus would have to do, something to take the edge off him.

Single malt wasn’t going out of date any time soon unlike most other pre-alien produce. It was a shame Augustus hadn’t rotted away like an unwanted microwave meal in a derelict supermarket. He sat at Gregor’s desk, caressing his stupid robe with an armed croatoan behind each shoulder.

Gregor placed the green bottle down with a reassuring thump and turned the tartan label in Augustus’s direction. “Would you like a drink, Mr. Augustus?”

“Don’t you offer all of your guests a drink?”

Gregor frowned. “I didn’t think that—”

“No, I don’t want a drink. We’ve got serious business to discuss.”

The croatoans clicked in unison. Augustus sat forward, placed his elbows on the desk, and clasped his fingers together. His sunken eyes fixed on Gregor.

Gregor told himself to keep calm, not to betray a flicker of emotion. He wanted to gut Augustus like a fish just like his former boss during Gregor’s successful putsch in 2009. Augustus and his old boss shared a lot of the same qualities. They made the men feel uneasy, behaved like kings, and ultimately acted for themselves instead of for the wider gang benefit.

“It’s been raining a lot this month,” Gregor said. Augustus dismissively waved his hand. “You said something about new targets, Mr. Augustus?”

“A global change of plan is required for all camps and farms. I’m here to tell you about the new directive and to set your targets for the next month.”

Gregor shifted uneasily in his chair. “Change of plan?”

“You’re required to double the land conversion statistics. We’re not going fast enough. I need a major push in the next few days.”

“That’s impossible. The six harvesters are working twenty-four—”

“Five harvesters at the moment. You’ve let another one get sabotaged today.”

“I’m going to take care of that. It’s the same person,” Gregor said. He tried to think of a way to articulate the implausibility of the new expectations. The ground team were already fully maximized meeting the current requirements. “Will you be providing me with more equipment and resources?”

Augustus drummed his fingers on the table and slowly nodded. “It’s time to be frank with you, Gregor.”

He turned sideways, slipped his bony fingers around his robe’s hood, and pulled it back. The mask encased the front half of his head and was held on with an elastic strap. Blotches of pink scarring covered the back half surrounded by wispy, brown hair. Augustus reached behind his crusty, misshapen left ear and clicked the fastening loose. The mask sprang away and hung to one side. He turned back to Gregor.

Gregor clenched his teeth, trying to keep a neutral exterior. Augustus looked like he’d been attacked with a knife and had the wounds cauterized with a blowtorch. Scarring covered at least fifty percent of his face. His left cheek folded inwards as if sewn to his tongue. Small islands of dark stubble spread around his chin and jawline.

“What are you doing?” Gregor said.

“I’m showing you the price of failure. I’ll be checking how you’re getting on in a couple of days. My face should serve as a reminder of what will happen if we’re not on schedule. I’m sure you can figure out the punishment for repeated failures?”

“How do you expect—”

“I don’t expect. The croatoans expect. You’re not a special case. It’s the same the world over.”

The door flung open, and a croatoan bounced in. The two guards initially turned their weapons before relaxing. It started communicating with Augustus using staccato alien noises. Gregor tried to discern Augustus’s reaction, but his mangled face was impossible to read.

“I need a moment outside,” Augustus said.

He left with the new arrival. The two guards remained inside, helmets angled down at Gregor. He reached for the whiskey bottle. The guard on the right flinched, nudging its weapon up.

“Steady, my friend. I’m just having a drink,” Gregor said.

He filled a shot glass and swallowed the whiskey in a single gulp, refilling immediately and drinking again. Gregor clenched his fist to keep his hand steady.

Augustus was setting him up for failure. Without doubling the harvesters, they had no chance. Even if the croatoans provided the machines, the ground team didn’t have enough trained humans to work in the Operations Compartments. The key to running the harvesters around the clock was the ability to carry out isolation procedures from the local control room to allow continuing functionality. The croatoans couldn’t or wouldn’t resource it, which was part of the reason he thought his team were still alive. They needed humans for work as well as food.

The door opened. Augustus returned, mask in hand. “I take it you’ve heard the latest news?”

Gregor raised his eyebrows. “Latest news?”

After sitting back at the desk, Augustus dabbed a white folded handkerchief against a dribble of saliva running from the corner of his mouth. “Ten croatoans dead. Ten. The harvester. You’re bringing a lot of heat down on this operation.”

“Ten dead?”

Augustus repeatedly jabbed his finger against the desk. “Two at the harvester. Two surveyors. Four searching for their killers. Two blown up, killed in a trap, following signals. Ten. T. E. N.”

The left corner of Augustus’s mouth twitched.

“It’s Jackson and his bastard son,” Gregor said. “We’ll get them. They can’t keep hiding forever.”

Augustus sighed. “You said that last year after they crashed a bulldozer through the paddock fences. Are you sure it’s them?”

“I’m positive. The harvester attacks have all followed the same pattern. Whenever we’ve interrogated survivors, they always blame him. Trust me, most of them want to keep out of our way and hate him as much as me.”

Augustus stood and cupped the mask around his face, clipping it back in place behind his ear. “You’re incapable of sorting this out. So I will.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gregor said.

“I’ll see to Mister Charles Jackson. We’ve got a limited resource available for such situations.”

“A limited resource? I can do this, just give me time.”

“Your time will be occupied with the quotas. We had a similar situation in North Africa. A pain in the ass that wouldn’t go away. I’m sending down a croatoan hunter.”

Gregor remembered a larger, more aggressive alien during the battle of Eastern Europe. He hadn’t seen one for twenty years. No nonsense and formidable. If it crushed the little wasp, he’d shake its hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Augustus. With him out of the way, we’ll have a better chance of meeting your targets.”

Augustus held the door open, and the two guards left. He turned to Gregor. “They’re not my targets, I’ve already told you. Oh, one more thing …”

“Yes, Mr. Augustus?”

“Wash your clothes. You smell like horse manure.”

***

Gregor followed Augustus and his two guards back toward the shuttle. Augustus had an annoying strut, like a peacock. He hadn’t spoken a word since his aroma barb. It was all right for Augustus; he probably had croatoans scrubbing his velvet robe and running him luxurious bubble baths on the mother ship.

The cobalt shuttle’s primed engines blasted hot air in Gregor’s face. He stopped by the edge of the clearing as the entourage headed for the graphite ramp.

Augustus glanced back; Gregor raised his hand. The robed cretin didn’t acknowledge him and shuffled into the craft followed by the two guards. The ramp slid into the main body, and the door hissed across and shut.

The ground rumbled as the engine noise increased, blowing dust in all directions.

The shuttle raised a few feet, paused, and zipped away in a smooth, diagonal line above the trees. Gregor shielded his eyes from the lowering sun and watched the craft bank to its left before shooting through the clouds toward the distant, vague outline of the mother ship in the spring green sky, the shuttle’s pink rings quickly disappearing into orbit.

Dust settled, and surrounding trees gently rocked to a halt, leaves brightly glistening with a greasy sheen.

A hand rested on Gregor’s shoulder. He flinched and turned, feeling for his gun.

Alex and Layla stood behind him.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” he said.

“We need to talk, Gregor. Things are happening, strange things,” Layla said. “One of the croatoans grabbed me by the hair after the booby trap. I haven’t seen them behave like that before.”

Gregor shrugged. “You should have told me about that. I had to learn about it from Augustus.”

“You were already in with him when she got back,” Alex said. “We were waiting till he left.”

“If you want to know about strange things, you should have been in my office when Augustus took off his mask.”

“What did he look like?” Layla said.

Gregor ran his fingers down his cheeks. “Like he’d been bobbing for apples in acid.”

He started walking back to his office. Layla tugged at his sweater. “I meant what I said. Something’s going down; we need to talk.”

“Talk in my office. I’ve also had some news.” Gregor glanced through the trees toward the chocolate factory as he led the two women away. Three croatoans were testing a large anti-gravity trailer at the back of the warehouse. It hovered three feet in the air. One alien balanced on top of it. The other two stood at either end, moving it around in a circle.

Gregor led the way through his front door, closing it behind Alex and Layla, twisting the key and securing the bolt. He peered through the window blinds before pulling them shut.

“Augustus wants us to double our land conversion stats. We’ve got a few days to do it,” he said.

“How are we supposed to that?” Alex said.

Gregor sat in his chair and poured a whiskey. “I don’t see a way. We bent over backward to meet the current targets. The new goal came attached with a threat.”

“Jesus. What?”

“You don’t want to know. Layla, any bright ideas?”

Layla looked down, rubbing her chin. She moved across to a chart on the office wall and placed her finger on an area north east of their current location. “This is all former farmland. We concentrate here for the next few weeks. Progress will be quicker as the woodland is less dense. I’m not saying it’ll double the conversion, but if we focus on these type of areas …”

“It’ll catch up with us,” Alex said. “At some stage, we’ll be left with thick forest and cities. Then what?”

“I’m just providing a short-term solution. Last week, I mapped the individual harvester statistics to the old charts. If we want to meet Augustus’s short-term targets, this is how we do it. When we get the damaged one from today repaired, we send it to start on the forest. Okay?”

Short-term, long term, it didn’t matter to Gregor. As long as he could keep the plates spinning. He downed his whisky and slammed the glass on the table. “Makes sense. Can you work on this together and send the new coordinates to the harvester drivers?”

“Leave it with us,” Alex said. “I’ll have the instructions sent out tonight.”

The thought of Alex and Layla working together pleased Gregor. Both seemed to have a mutual dislike for each other since meeting ten years ago. The time hadn’t managed to bring about a thaw, unlike the croatoans’ weather control.

Alex was long-serving and loyal. Friends from the pre-alien days were at a premium. Layla had provided him with yet another solution to keep the wolf from the door. Without her, he could have been hanging on a butcher’s hook.

His thoughts turned to Marek. With Augustus out of the way and the new directive in place, it was all hands on deck. A safe and justifiable time to release his old friend.

“Alex. You’re in charge of the ground team again. Marek’s back as my number two,” Gregor said. He brushed the blonde to one side and unlocked the door. “I’ll leave you two to it. Let me know if you have any problems. I don’t like looking clueless in front of that masked bastard.”

“Gregor, wait, they’re up to something,” Layla said.

“Who? The croatoans? They’re always up to something.”

“Not just the quotas. Have you noticed there’s more of them in the warehouses? Numbers have doubled in the chocolate factory. The equipment they’re bringing down too. I’m telling you, this is more than usual operations.”

“They come and go. So what if they have a new floating platform or funny device?”

Alex stepped toward him and said with a genuine look of sincerity, “She’s got a point. It’s not just because of today; it’s been going on the past two weeks. They’re not communicating with us either.”

Gregor paused for a moment. He couldn’t deny that things were changing, but for the sake of survival, they had to concentrate on what would work for them. Worrying over alien experiments or motives wouldn’t help. Meeting the targets and keeping the livestock healthy and fit for consumption would.

“Do some digging. See what you can find out,” he said.

As he left the office, Gregor gazed at sky. It started to turn a gentle orange during the hours of dusk and dawn over a year ago, perhaps two. It became more accentuated as they covered larger swathes of the continent with the initial planting of croatoan crops.

Gregor heaved up the metal garage door, wincing as it screeched on its rusty mechanism like giant nails running along a chalkboard.

Marek peered through the dim light, twisting his shoulders against the bound rope around his upper torso. “Gregor, you’ve come to see me.”

“It’s over, my friend. You’re back as my number two.”

“Why did you do it? You know you can trust me.”

Gregor picked up a knife from the table on the right-hand side of the garage and jabbed it toward Marek. “It was an act to keep you alive. Do you think Augustus liked the fact that you’d been captured and interrogated by the little wasp?”

“You could have told me,” Marek said.

“And let Augustus’s aliens beat that information out of you? We’d both be dead. I’m sorry, you have to understand.”