ERROR. LOCATION TRACKER MISSING.
ERROR. HEALTH TRACKER MISSING.
ERROR. SERVER CONNECTION DISRUPTED, SERVER PROXIMITY REQUIRED.
WELCOME MERCENARY. YOU HAVE BEEN CONTRACTED FOR YOUR [PERSEVERANCE] AND [ADAPTABILITY] AS A SPECIES. THE PAYMENT HAS BEEN ISSUED AS [PLANET RELOCATION].
PLEASE LOCATE YOUR NEAREST OFFICE TO UNDERGO CLASS SPECIALISATION.
I sat up and rubbed my temples. The words appeared in front of my eyes, and I understood them as if they were written in English. I glanced around, and everyone was staring down at me. I’d fallen down hard, and they’d placed my pack under my head. Looking up at the sky, a little bit of light shone back, indicating it had been at least a few hours.
I coughed before speaking. My throat burned with dryness. “Water… please.”
I didn’t feel too different. If I concentrated on the thought, then the Enforcer text would disappear. If I willed it back, then it was there again. Someone passed me a water bottle, which I gratefully chugged.
“That was stupid,” Fern said. She helped me to my feet, and steadied me as I leaned on her. She was a couple inches taller than me, and more muscular. She grinned. “What’d you find out?”
I repeated the message I saw, and the group started muttering amongst themselves. Herman spoke up first.
“Location tracker missing is encouraging,” he said slowly, as if trying to convince himself. He then looked at Fiora and Diane in question.
“We got the same. I assume that would’ve come later,” Diane answered. Ollie signed to the same effect.
Henry chimed in. “The ‘office’ they’re talking about is gonna be wherever they’re taking the kidnapped ones. Gotta be where the servers are too. Makes that injection a bit pointless if we can’t access their resources.”
I grimaced. He was right. The plan, or the vague idea I’d had was based on what Fiora had been told by the Enforcers onboard the ship. Apparently, we would be granted a way of growing stronger unnaturally quickly if we worked for them. They spun stories of humans lifting cars, or sniping enemy combatants from tens of miles away. I had hoped the syringe itself was the key to that.
I picked up the empty syringe from where it lay in the grass and tossed it into the flames. “In that case, there’s one real option. It’s not gonna be easy,” I said, watching the flames rise. “But first, sleep on it. We’re all too tired for this. Tomorrow, I want to start preparing properly.”
With that, the group fell into murmurs. I looked at Kennan, who was sitting on an overturned log by himself on the outside. He was staring intently at the schedule. I moved next to him. He flinched, and I placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You’ve seen this the whole time, haven’t you?” I asked, voice soft. “You were in Washington D.C during the first sweep. You never said what happened.”
He didn’t respond for a few seconds. “I didn’t… I didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“I didn’t know if it was real. I thought you’d think I was crazy.”
I looked at the schedule, which had changed. The sweeping patterns now had a few layers above it, as if projected on top. Here, words shifted back and forth, times and dates appearing for a moment then disappearing. Even now, I couldn’t decipher any real meaning from it.
“I was out camping with my husband, when–you know. We’d barely recovered from the sweep, and a ship landed nearby. He, being the idiot he is, ran to check it out. He called for peace. The look on his face, it was like giddiness. To be the one to make first contact.” I paused for a second, reminding myself to breathe.
Kennan looked at me, but not in the eyes. I was thankful for that this time. “I let him go. I ran the other way. All this time I assumed… And I can’t imagine. I can’t possibly imagine what it was like for you, in a goddamned city. I don’t need to know what you did–what they made you do to get out of there. It’s fine if we’re crazy. It’s safer to question our reality than accept that what they did to us is okay.”
He was still for a moment, and I realised I was shaking. He handed me the schedule. The texture was coarse, not sharp. It felt like a piece of sandstone worn by erosion.
“Two days,” he said, pointing at a few converging dates. “I am in. We make them pay.”
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The next morning, we broke camp at first light. The air was cold and bitter but not one of us complained. There was too much to do.
Two days until the next sweep. If we wanted a foothold in their technology, that was our way in. Not everyone was on board to attack; as it stood, about half the group was with me. The rest would help us prepare, but in the end, they would stay here.
Henry was leading a team of five setting up contingency measures. All manner of traps would be placed in the clearing where we'd confront them. They also designated fallback points, in case things went south. We had no idea whether the Enforcer’s leniency from last time would hold, and we didn’t intend to test it.
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I had marked out four locations on my map within walking distance. Two hunter’s lodges, a firewatch tower, and a highway full of abandoned cars. I was hopeful that we would be able to find at least one more gun. A team of three was on the way to each one. I was with Fern and Diane on the way to the tower.
I spent the time walking in an almost meditative state, prodding at the Enforcer script at the edge of my vision. There was something to it, a vague understanding. It hummed at me as I willed it to respond. It took an hour of pressing at its limits before the text rearranged itself.
SERVER CONNECTION DISRUPTED. SYSTEM UNABLE TO PROCESS ADVANCEMENT.
I exhaled sharply. Whatever power there was, Henry was right, we couldn’t access it from here.
The sound of our boots squelching through muddy land brought me back to reality. Ahead, atop a mild hill, the firewatch tower loomed, its silhouette piercing into the morning gray sky. It looked abandoned, but I couldn’t be sure.
Fern took point as we approached, moving with the same cautious efficiency she always did. I wondered for a moment as I watched if she had some military background behind her time as a forest ranger. Diane and I flanked, stepping lightly on the damp earth.
As we reached the base of the tower, I scanned the area. No signs of recent activity. No footprints in the dirt. No movement up top. Just an old structure standing alone in the wilderness.
“Fern, stay down here and keep watch. Diane and I will loot whatever’s left,” I said.
Fern nodded after a second, coming to the same conclusion that I had.
The wooden stairs groaned as we climbed. Though paranoia was second nature nowadays, I told myself the feeling of unease I had was unwarranted. Inside, the tower was a mess. Papers scattered across the floor, a chair overturned, a radio broken with its parts strewn across the deck. And then there was the smell. It was so overpowering I almost lost that morning's breakfast.
“Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ,” Diane gasped. I followed her gaze.
“Oh,” was all I could manage.
In the corner of the room, behind an overturned shelving cabinet, was a rotting corpse. A patch of crimson outlined the head. I took a deep breath and tried to appear confident.
“Diane, would you go down and tell Fern the situation? I’ll join you in a second.” I could see she was on the verge of tears. She needed to leave, but she would never ask.
“S-sure.”
I walked to the body and knelt next to him, forcing myself to breathe through my mouth. One hand still latched onto the end of a shotgun.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know your name, but you were strong. Stronger than most. You defied them, and for that, you will forever live on.”
I grabbed the gun, strapped it across my shoulder and quickly scavenged the rest of the space. In it, I found a stash of canned food and a few boxes of shotgun shells.
When I came back down to the bottom of the tower, I saw Diane sitting at the bottom of the hill, knees up to her face. Fern walked up to meet me.
“You alright?” she asked.
I handed her the shotgun instead of answering.
Fern regarded me harshly but sighed, inspecting it with quick, practiced movements. “Benelli Nova. Pump-action, 12 gauge. Surprisingly clean, given the… circumstances.”
She checked the chamber and slung the shotgun over her shoulder. “We’ve got what we came for. I’ll teach you to carry it tomorrow.”
I nodded. Down the hill, Diane had stopped crying. She looked back up at the pair of us, fire in her reddened eyes, before reaching us quickly.
“Teach me,” she said. “Teach me how to use it. Ava can fight already, I need that to level the playing field. But let me have it, and I will fucking take them all down.”
Fern smiled at the woman. “You’ll have it when we get back and I’ve cleaned it out.”
By the time we made it back to camp, the others had returned as well. The highway team had found a handgun in a glovebox and a smattering of other supplies. The lodges had been stripped bare.
That evening, we got back to planning. We didn’t mention the dead fire lookout to anyone else.
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The next day was colder than before. Clouds gathered overhead, a heavy, suffocating gray pressing down on the landscape. It felt like an omen that none of us dared address.
Fern started Diane on basic shotgun drills as promised, her voice sharp and instructive. Diane was a fast learner. I watched from a distance, turning my attention back to Henry’s traps.
The pitfalls were done. Covered with branches and leaves, they were deep enough to break a leg, maybe worse. Concealed bear traps were also scattered around. We spent a while going over the locations so we wouldn’t fall victim. For the Enforcers, it would slow them down a while. We knew from experience that they refused to die, so that was unfortunately all we could do.
“I wish you wouldn’t look so grim, miss.” Herman’s voice came from my side. I turned to face him.
“It wouldn’t be right to be cheerful at a time like this.”
“No, but perhaps that simmering fury could be replaced with a little hope. Some faith.”
I sighed, not willing to engage that argument. “Are you joining the assault, Herman? There’s a pistol unclaimed. I’d trust you to shoot it.”
A few raindrops started to fall, slowly tickling my skin. Herman gestured towards the other side of the clearing. There, Ollie was sitting, sharpening a wooden spear. “That kid, bless his heart, is going to try and fight. I can’t say it’s not his right. But I can be scared for him, if not his life then what effect this new world will have on him.”
He was right, of course. Ollie was a mess when we found him a few months back, wandering through the woods. We’d learnt sign language–or a small enough version of it to even talk to him. His parents were likely taken, although he never said. This wasn’t a life a kid should live.
Herman continued. “I won’t use a gun on a person, alien or not. I will not kill a living soul. But I also won’t allow Ollie to go on alone.”
“He wouldn’t be alone–”
“Ava. You are doing what you think is right. But when it comes to it, you will turn a blind eye and let Ollie become a weapon. So yes, miss. I will come with you.”
A lump formed in my throat as I rebuked the accusation in my head. Of course I wouldn’t. So why couldn’t I say that out loud?
Herman patted me on the back, then walked to go talk to Kennan. The rain was in full effect now. I shook myself off, trying to forget the conversation entirely. I needed to be ready to fight. The clearing was ready, and the sweep was in a few hours.
I called out for everyone to gather around me, and go through every little detail one last time.