The Human Insurgency

The Human Insurgency

By J. Kirsch

Copyright 2014 J. Kirsch

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Video-feed streamed into the bunker as Hu Jin
watched. Beijing was wreathed in flames. Three large aircraft
hovered overhead like waterless carriers. They spat out sleek
fighter-craft like demonic cockroaches, and those cockroaches were
slinging slugs powerful enough to level whole buildings with a
single hit.

"Dragon Unleashes the Wind. I repeat, Dragon
Unleashes the Wind." General Chao's words came in harsh and clear.
The Chinese code words changed every hour. Though it didn't seem
that the Enemy had tapped into the military's communications, they
used precautions all the same.

Jin's aide sat across the table, her hands folded
tensely in her lap.

"Meiyu, go catch an hour's rest. Just because I am
needed here, sleep be damned, there's no need for you to exhaust
yourself. Call in Ling to assist me. Get some rest."

She shook her head adamantly as the ground shook
beneath them. One of Jin's monitors showed that another skyscraper
was on fire. People were jumping, many of them transformed into
flailing torches. Jin turned away.

That's when he saw it, if only for the second time,
on the left-hand monitor. The new weapon in action still made his
heart pound. Those missiles arched, breath-taking in their grace.
He watched as they streaked for the nearest carrier-ship.

The ship resembled an aircraft carrier, but its
contours were far more rounded. It looked like a giant, floating
oblong egg. Panels in the ship's flanks seemed to open on all sides
to release their deadly fighter craft. These seamless bays were in
the process of releasing at least a dozen more squads of the
cockroach ships when the missiles struck. Most exploded harmlessly
against whatever shields the Enemy used. But one of the missile's
propulsion systems suddenly tanked, holding clear of the fiery if
impotent deaths of its many siblings. It was designed to blend in
until just before that all-important moment of impact.

And suddenly a projectile that should have been
harmless from all of the Enemy's past experience became an embrace
of the most lethal persuasion.

The last missile held aloft in the sky, a hiccup in
time. Then the blast exploded like an opening flower, a blue nova
blooming in all directions, swamping the port side of the
carrier-ship.

A gaping void, like half of a sandwich suddenly
eaten, appeared in the side of the invading carrier. The rest of it
began to break up and fall away. Even though this newly made junk
from space would probably crush hundreds of innocent people below,
Jin heard cries of jubilance over his com link. Heady slogans
filled his ears from other members of the Chinese Communist Party's
Secretariat. He heard Wen Shan's excited voice through the
static.

"Our red blood shall flow with the revolutionary
fervor of our soldiers until every last Invader is wiped away
clean!" shouted Shan euphorically.

Damn him for an idiot!
Jin swore. As the
General Secretary of the CCP's most powerful and still functioning
governing body, Jin wanted to have that man shot. But Shan was the
descendant of the old elite because his great-grandfather had been
a Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution. Shan had been taught that
to struggle was glorious and wonderful. To that half-crazed lunatic
blood was something to be welcomed. If he could sacrifice 20
million lives to destroy 2 more of those ships, he would call such
a thing victory and crack his face with a hearty smile. He was the
type of man that would do things the costly way before ever
wondering, 'Is a better way within my reach?'

God damn such men
.
God damn them all
,
Jin grumbled inwardly. But he needed every man he could get. He
couldn't afford to be political. Not now. Not with the plight of
the world at stake. In the midst of the excitement, watching the
video-feed of the Battle for Beijing unfolding, Meiyu had slipped
out. She returned with a cup of tea and modest plate of steaming
baozi.

Jin ate without even tasting, typing in furious
commands to other party leaders across the Asian continent. Meiyu
passed him a drive with the latest high-security downloads from the
network. It wasn't that he couldn't have downloaded them directly
to his system, but security precautions trumped efficiency. Not
everything was networked, and some sensitive data was spoon-fed to
one system and then passed along via drives by hand. It wasn't an
elegant arrangement. It was damn clumsy, to be honest.

But those who knew more about these Invaders than he
did had assured him that this would somehow throw off the Enemy's
infiltration. As a leader, sometimes you had to trust those below
you. Even when the sky was falling, no, especially then, you had to
trust someone.

We had our 'brainwashing' session after we were done
listening to the maddening broadcasts from Earth, frantic voices
which talked of cities ripped apart. Compared to the
propaganda-like broadcasts, our brainwashing session was a subtler
form of torment. These things came at us, and they were maybe the
size of a nightstand yet with legs like the tentacles of an
octopus. From each thing's 'head' came purplish stalks, a twin set
which inserted itself into our ears. Asking you to imagine these
disgusting creatures with their antennae-like limbs implanted in
our heads, you might wonder if it's all too absurd to be real. But
the nightmare was real, and we sat helpless to do anything except
view image after image projected into our heads as if a monster
were shoving flash cards before our eyes.

We concentrated on what had originally seemed to be
gibberish. Now and then the symbols combined into glimpses of
meaning. It was as if they were teaching us some kind of code by
repetitive exposure. In just a matter of months the symbolic
gibberish had even begun to invade our dreams.

The five of us focused on the language tutorials for
the better part of three hours, until at last the morning routine
ran its course. The hideous arms withdrew from us, and the assault
of symbols eased up on my tattered thoughts. At last I felt just
sweet, sweet blankness. I had my mind to myself.

I could sense though, that it was about time to go
up. Routines did that to you after long enough, encouraging you to
develop your our own inner clock.

I grasped the nearest length of rope-like tissue,
made out of what, I could only shudder to guess. Myla, Oliver,
Jobe, and Kane did likewise. Soon we were sprawled on Level 2. This
had been the appalling level, then the awkward level, and finally
the cautiously pleasant and tolerable level - a gradual development
during our captivity the past few months.

Level 2 was the 'courtship' level. Yes, you heard
right. After our first few days the Enemy had made it clear to us
that this was the Level's purpose. When it all started, Myla and I
were expected to pair off with two of the men. I chose Jobe and
Myla chose Kane. I hated the way this isolated Oliver, but we
didn't have a choice.

The aliens seemed content to let us go at our own
speed, which meant that although we were required to spend time in
a tight, confined space with our chosen 'partner,' we weren't
forced into any physical act we didn't want to do. What had begun
as an awkward 'blind date' had gradually evolved into something we
looked forward to.

You might think that five people being trapped in
various communal spaces would eventually adjust to always being
together. But there's a persistent need to have some privacy, and
this was the only time I had anything close to privacy…so yes, the
once-awkward blind dates with Jobe had become something more to
me.

"Hey," Jobe said, caressing my cheek. "You doing OK?
Who would you like me to do today?"

Each day he would attempt impersonations for me.
Actors, T.V. personalities, celebrities. It was a good way to wring
some laughter out of me.

I clasped his hands, looking down at him as he
blushed.

"Surprise me."

Full confession here: I had begun to fall for Jobe,
and we both knew it. BUT, and I have put this with slam-dunk
firmness, that didn't mean we were going to be having sex any time
soon (or ever) under the microscope of aliens who seemed to view us
as their own private freak show.

It was despite the situation that Jobe and I had
formed a relationship. It was nice to have some inside jokes just
between the two of us. When it was just him and me I could be less
self-conscious. I could be myself in ways that I couldn't be with
our bigger group. My time with Jobe was probably even more
important because I could be free of my sister for once!

I know that sounds horrible, but sometimes I didn't
want to put on a brave front and tell my little sister
'Everything's going to be OK!'. Sometimes I wanted to cry, to let
out the pent-up frustration of despair and grief that I felt. Jobe
would let me release all that crap, leaning on him as I just let it
go.

Sometimes though, it was the other way around. As a
macho-looking African-American, he more than anyone else in our
group played the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' card. But what human
doesn't have doubts? No, let me rephrase: what human captured by
aliens and kept in indefinite captivity doesn't have doubts, deep
and serious? So every time we sat in this tiny room together we
were like each other's personal lifelines, maintaining each other's
sanity in ways we couldn't in the larger group.

Jobe now decided to do his best version of Sean
Connery and then one politician after the next. I giggled as he hit
his stride, his voice playful as a cat's purr one moment, then
changing key the next, booming indignantly like Winston
Churchill.

When he'd exhausted his comic relief skills for the
day I leaned forward tentatively. We kissed. He always let me
initiate. I think the creepiness of our situation made him want to
be the perfect gentleman. His hands pressed firmly against my lower
back, but they never strayed from there, and I knew that they
wouldn't either, not without a very explicit green light from
me.

My hands felt warm resting against his biceps. The
muscles were distracting, and not in a bad way.

After more than 12 weeks I wanted to force out of my
mind this urge to wonder why the aliens were making us do this
courtship ritual, but part of my brain refused to abandon one
speculation after another. It kept me from thinking how guilty I
felt for liking Jobe. How liking him made me feel like I was
somehow consenting to the demeaning experiment the aliens were
conducting on us. What were we to them but lab rats?

But did that mean we couldn't at least hold onto our
humanity in subtle ways? I was beyond shame. I think tribulation
and grief had a way of getting me to that point. I was like someone
who'd been given impossible choices. What was I going to do? Make
my body shut down? Turn away from Jobe and refuse to even speak to
him? Sit and wait to die? Was it right for me to ignore the shame
of what Jobe and I were now doing in order to survive? To do things
I would never do in a totally sane or perfect world?

Right now I didn't care, and whatever Jobe and I
shared, it still had meaning regardless of what had thrown us
together. This courtship was making us care about each other in new
dimensions, and that had meaning which I was betting none of the
Glowing Ones, no matter how brilliant as scientists, could fully
comprehend.

Jin stared at the bedside photo of his wife and
family. He didn't see any anger in her captured-in-time face, no
rage at being stolen from the world too early. It was as if she
watched over him. The picture of her gave him that intangible
feeling of relief to keep. It kept him going another day. Another
hour.

Half-clothed in the light, Jin rubbed his eyes as
Meiyu stirred under the bed sheets. Her arm flailed at the faded
warmth where only a body's imprint remained.

"Hmm? News? You have to go?" She was used to his
sudden disappearances in the night. Meetings, his presence summoned
to see exactly how the Enemy was systematically destroying
humanity's world.