“This thing is older than I am.”
That was the thought going through Alex Summers’ head as he checked over a radio he was fairly sure had been in service since the 1970’s. He’d been at the small army communications outpost in the boonies of the Alaskan “countryside” for about three months now. In that time, he’d seen everything from a punchcard machine to an honest to god commodore 64 that ran their servers. It was one of the many problems with the US military branches, if it still did its job, nobody saw any need to replace it.
Although, now that he thought about it, that might be that same reasoning that kept him around. He had served in the army as a marksman. In fact, he was on track to become a Ranger. Was being the operative word. That had all ended after a rather unfortunate incident involving an officer’s sister, followed by a lot of string pulling and shuffling that landed him in the coldest, most out of the way station they could find.
Cold winter air rushed into the barely heated room in an instant. Summers turned to find his border collie of a staff sergeant, Nowak, in the doorway, a smile on his face.
“What’s up… Sergeant?” The rank was an afterthought, Summers had dragged the man from the one bar in town too many times to bother with formalities at this point. But manners never hurt, and he liked the guy, despite his better judgement. That’s to say in his experience NCO’s like Nowak were usually smarter, and meaner, than they let on.
Nowak’s smile only broadened “You’ve got to see this shit.”
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“This shit” was a caravan of trucks pulling through the main gate. That in itself wasn’t unusual, what was strange were the tarp covered trailers being escorted by a full platoon of heavily armed soldiers.
“It’s some DARPA thing.” said Nowak, indicating the emblem on the side of one of the trucks. “Would have been nice if the brass let the rest of us know it was coming.”
That was a surprise to Summers, there were about a dozen NCO’s on the base, and Nowak was probably the most well liked. If he didn’t know what was going on, that meant whatever was happening was way over his paygrade.
Summers glanced at the tarped trucks, “What do you think it is?”
Nowak gave that some serious thought before –
“Probably a nuke.”
“You serious?”
Nowak shrugged, “I can’t see any other reason they’d lug all that equipment out here except to test something that might explode. With a guard detail on top of that…”
Summers watched as a suited man he could only assume was an officer stepped out of the truck along with a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than 12. A civilian then? He watched as they headed over to talk with his CO, Colonel Braun. To his surprise, the Colonel saluted the suit, announcing to anyone who cared that the stranger in front of them was calling the shots here.
“Huh…”
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They ate lunch in a sheet metal hangar turned mess hall. Summers watched as the men from the new guard detail kept a distance from the rest. There were a few brave or brainless soldiers that tried to cozy up to the newcomers, but from what he could tell, all they managed to get were a few polite but firm requests they keep to themselves.
Summers was busy watching the circus when a lunchtray dropped, then splashed, in front of him. Angela Cortez stared down at Summers, a look of such disdain on her face, he briefly worried he’d drunk texted her the night before.
Cortez and Nowak were Summers’ drinking buddies most weekends, they were among the only ones on base with a CIB – a piece of plastic that shows someone shot at you and missed. That made them minor celebrities among morons who thought that mattered, so they’d naturally ended up getting together and swapping stories.
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Cortez was also his training partner. If you considered beating the everloving shit out of a man training. She, of course, did, and he was worried she’d decided he needed another lesson in hand to face combat.
“This is some bullshit.” Cortez said, gesturing to the much larger and clearly much more heavily disciplined group of soldiers on the opposite side of the room. “They’re walking around like they own the place.”
“You seriously care if they take it off our hands?”
“No, but still…” Cortez muttered as she sat, still glaring at no one in particular. “Kind of pisses me off no one bothered to mention we’d have a literal army marching in. You hear what they’re doing to the bunker?”
“What?”
The bunker was a huge, empty area full of tunnels and worn cement. It was supposed to be nuke proof, now it was mostly used for storage. Summers couldn’t see any reason anyone would bother with it.
“I don’t know, they’ve taken it over. That’s why I’m asking you. They haven’t given you a briefing or something?” Cortez inclined her head towards him.
Summers chewed his food slowly.
“Even if they did, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Asked Cortez.
“Both?”
Cortez considered that, then kicked Summers under the table, not lightly.
“The fuck was that for?!” Summers grunted, instinctively reaching for his leg before remembering there was a table in the way, and nearly slamming his head into it.
“Because I can get away with it. And because you’re an asshole.” Cortez replied.
“She’s right, you are kind of an asshole.” Summers turned to find Nowak sitting beside him.
“How am I the asshole here?” Summers asked.
“Oh, I have no idea, what I do know is you don’t piss off Cortez. Ain’t that right, Cortez?” Nowak turned to the smiling woman.
“So that means you know what’s going on?” Cortez asked.
“Again, no idea, and if you kick me, I’ll have you cleaning toilets for a week.” Nowak smiled back. Cortez looked at him as if she was still considering it.
“But our good friend Summers will be watching those doors tonight, so if he sees anything, I’m sure he’ll be smart enough to keep his mouth shut.” Nowak added, not so subtly shifting Cortez’ attention back to him.
“Why me? They got a full platoon for guard duty.” Summers asked.
“Because those are your orders.” Nowak smiled again, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
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Summers stood at the doorway to the bunker, M4 in hand, freezing his ass off as soldiers he didn’t recognize came and went. For whatever reason they kept to themselves, just showed their ID, and stepped through the surprisingly heavy metal doors. They never said a word otherwise.
These were not the type of soldiers Summers was used to. These guys walked around like they knew something he didn’t. Which for all intents and purposes was probably true, but it annoyed him they felt the need to broadcast it. Summers wasn’t a curious man by nature, but throughout the morning and most of the afternoon he’d watched as they hauled all sorts of boxed up equipment into the bunker, truckloads of cargo. At one point he’d thought they might run out of space, but it just kept coming. He couldn’t help but be a little curious, but now wasn’t the time to scratch that itch.
“What do you think they’re doing in there? Heard it was a UFO. Saw a guy in a suit, think this is some men in black shit?”
Summers turned to see the man he was guarding the door with, a youngish private by the name of Adams, looking at him quizzically. He hadn’t really spoken to the kid before, but with the amount of people who probably outranked his CO heading in and out, he felt it was a bad time to start. Last thing he wanted was to get written up and stuck somewhere even more cold and remote. Maybe the south pole?
“Keep your mouth shut and eyes forward.” Summers replied. Adams watched him for another beat.
“…You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?” Adams observed.
“So I’ve been told.” Summers stated flatly.
Things started to quiet down after that. The trickle of soldiers stopped, and for a few hours it was just Summers and Adams in the cold dark. It was a little strange now that he thought about it, actually. Summers had seen a ton of people coming in, and only a few going out. Usually just to bring in some new cargo a few minutes later.
Then there was a pop from inside.
Adams quirked his head at the noise. “You hear that?”
Summers debated whether he should ignore the private, but then another pop got his attention. No, not a pop, that was an M4. Then another. Soon the unmistakable report of automatic gunfire was leaking through the thick metal door at their backs. Did one of those assholes go postal?
“Call it in. And do not fucking shoot unless I do first.” Summers laid his hand on the lever that would open the door, weapon at the ready. Whatever was happening he needed to make sure they saw it coming before it was at their backs.
Just as he cracked the door open -- it exploded outward.
The last thing Summers heard before the inky blackness of unconsciousness washed over him, was an inhuman scream.