Alien Agenda Read online

  “No reaction, right?” said Jennifer, most likely referring to Rick’s lack of response to the crowd.

  “He’s probably scared out of his mind,” said John.

  “Just keep watching,” said the colonel.

  One again, a drop of acid threw the monster into a convulsive fit. It flailed in the water, and Rick’s suddenly animated corpse rushed across the aquarium to the rescue, bathing the seven-foot squid to neutralize the reaction.

  John’s jaw dropped. “He’s turned into one of them.”

  Jennifer spoke as if she’d practiced the speech a hundred times. “The virus, I think, in addition to changing the cellular building blocks of anything it infects, acts on the nervous system directly. I have a creeping suspicion that these squid creatures aren’t even the actual aliens. They’re just slaves of the master race, whatever that is. Soldiers.

  “If we pulled some nerve tissue from Rick’s spine, we’d find that it’s undergone a serious change. His senses likely have as well. They can sense each other from across the room.”

  “What do you mean squiddies aren’t the aliens?” asked John. “They’re the ones we are finding at every crash site, and even in the original videos from the burning cities.”

  “I think their world suffered the same fate that ours will. They aliens aren’t worried about wiping us out. It’s easier to convert humans that are already grown and healthy rather than raising a whole new crop. This technology they’re using isn’t just retro-viral science, it’s mind control. We just need to find the controller, and we could likely disable all of them. Or at least large attack forces. That would help protect the strike teams, and maybe the planet.”

  “Question,” said Jacob. “Just a quick little. Um. These two aren’t being controlled by anything. Why aren’t they just limp bodies?”

  “And they’re both dumb as a brick,” she replied. The comment did nothing to quell John’s foul mood. “The perfect soldier is one that doesn’t have a mind of his own. These bodies are vessels for manipulation. Nothing else. But they still contain everything they need to serve an essential function. They get hungry and eat. Their biological controls like breathing and pumping blood are intact. In essence, they’re mindless animals until they are given an order, and then they follow it without regard for their own life or anyone else’s. They don’t think, they just do. Turn off the switch, and they turn into what you see. Basic animal instinct only.”

  The colonel shook his head as Rick returned to his side of the tank. “They know enough to help each other.”

  “Instinct,” repeated Jennifer. “Rick isn’t refusing to talk. His mind has been corrupted to the point where he can’t form higher thoughts. The core operating system for his body, however, the older reptilian portions of his brain, those are still working. None of these aliens can tell us anything. They’ve been reprogrammed. The virus reprogrammed them by itself somehow. They’re more like machinery than anything else. Ever try asking a robot how it builds a car?”

  John shook his head. “He knew how to use a gun, and he tried to escape.”

  “Watch,” said Jennifer. She tapped her tablet a couple times, and the doorway into the glass enclosure opened wide.

  The colonel’s heart rate picked up, and he grasped his Sig, but Rick did little more than pass a glance at the open door. He had no desire to escape.

  “I think,” said Jennifer, “that his escape attempt was some remnant before the virus took hold of him. So you were right. There was something of rick still inside there, but that part is gone now. It’s been consumed. He’s perfectly harmless. If they get any more docile, they might even stop eating, and just die in the tank.”

  John let out his first reasonable comment of the day. “Maybe he was trying to get out to protect the rest of us from catching whatever he had. Maybe. Jesus, Rick.”

  “I don’t have any proof,” continued Jennifer. “But I think there is a machine somewhere in that wreckage that can control them. If we can find it, maybe we can force them to rip each other apart. I suspect that the automation is programmed ahead of time with some task that they need to perform. We just need to rewrite the controller code.”

  “Ha,” said Jacob. “Easier said than done, even if we could understand their little markings.”

  “Swan,” said the colonel. “I want all of your resources on this. Figure out how to shut them down. Give your best scanning code to R and D. Jennifer, we need to know how the signal is being broadcast if it’s coming from outer space. You guys work together on this. I don’t want to hear the word can’t out of anyone. If we can disable the controller at the alien base and broadcast our own code, then we can use their damn tech against them. This is what we needed to find. It might be our only chance at stopping them. Maybe it’ll disable the snakes, too. Who knows?”

  The colonel’s mood was instantly transformed. He was hopeful about everything. The little mouse girl had unlocked the secret weakness of the invaders. “We can do this. We can figure out the controllers, get that data to world governments, and they’ll have a weapon they can fight back with. I don’t think their signals will affect ordinary humans. Only those infected.” He stood up. “This is fucking brilliant. Jennifer, I’m getting you and your team a case of whiskey, and one for you too, Jacob, if you can figure this out.”

  John looked at him. “Guess I better get the wet suits ready. Amphibious rifles are probably our best bet for weaponry. Inaccurate as hell, but should be fine for short range.”

  The colonel couldn’t contain himself. After weeks of nothing but ill fortune, they finally had a break. “Order whatever you need. I’m not waiting for another ship to drop out of the atmosphere. They probably have several of the controllers at their base somewhere. Maybe that’s what the bases are for. They infect people and then subsequently control them by remote.”

  Jacob Swan rolled his eyes unenthusiastically, and then wandered toward the door. “What about the engines?”

  “Fuck the engines, Jacob. There’s a million other labs out there we can hand that work off to. Priority number one is defending our planet, and for the first time since this mission was dreamed up, we have a shot. The little bastards based their entire technology on a single thread: this mind controller. We clip that umbilical cord, and they’re helpless.”

  The colonel replaced the bottle after filling a couple of glasses in his private quarters. Nicole savage sat across the desk from him, sipping at her now nightly whiskey ration.

  She asked, “You don’t think this is putting all of our eggs in one basket?”

  “We only have room for one basket. This operation is too small to compete with an entire race of aliens. Besides, I think they put all of their eggs in one mother ship. We used to topple governments in small countries because of the lazy way they were organized. Defense budgets are set to protect the thin thread holding our own economy together. Every organized system or militia has a weakness, and I think we just found it.”

  “What are you going to do with the alien? I have plenty of bodies to cut up already. I don’t think a live one would be of much use to me.”

  “And you’re sure that there’s no cure for this DNA thing?”

  “None. I could explain the process to you, but—”

  “No, please. Keep it simple for an old man.”

  “It’s outside my power. The CDC, if fully backed for such a project, would take years and millions of dollars, and they still might not figure it out. We have to pick our battles. And right now, I agree with you. The battle is to figure out how to control them before they start controlling us.”

  “There’s another worry,” he said, pouring a second glass. “We’ve attacked their base directly twice now. They have to know we aren’t going to quit. There’s no telling what they’re doing down there. If they didn’t have an ambush set up before, there’s almost certainly one in place now.”

  “I’m afraid for those guys. I just wish I could give them some kind of defense against that
plasma. As it stands, there isn’t much I think we can do about it, and now your engineering guys are full blast trying to figure out mind control technology. Jacob sent a couple guys over to my lab earlier to test skin sample responses to certain kinds of radio waves.”

  “Figure anything out?”

  “I think they figured out that skin samples maybe aren’t the best medium for their little experiment.”

  “The plasma isn’t the worry, nor loosing troops, or even failing to penetrate the alien base. The real worry is that they’ll give up on this installation and just build another one somewhere out of our reach. Or maybe they already have. Maybe they’ll infect spiders with the virus next time.”

  “Please colonel, there’s plenty around here to give me nightmares for the rest of my life.”

  “It’s funny. When the general dragged me out of retirement, he said that the war was over in a week. We leave them alone, they leave us alone. That’s it. I doubt he realized the burning cities were just to get our attention. The invasion hasn’t begun yet. And it’s going to be carried out with human zombies, not aliens.”

  “Why would they bother bombing cities at all? Don’t they have some kind of stealth aircraft.”

  “There’s nothing stealth in space. We’d see their activity eventually, if not in orbit then definitely in our atmosphere.”

  “No space stealth? How’s that p

ossible? Space is huge and black. I’d think it would be easy to hide up there.”

  “I could give you some of the details, doctor, but not all of them. The only think I know is, the space nerds say it’s impossible to truly hide up there. Something our spy satellites have to contend with.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “They’re risking very little to control an entire planet. If it wasn’t for us, they’d probably already be marching their armies all over the earth. Armies of human minions. And somehow I’m supposed to stop that.”

  “Well. I think that’s it for me tonight.” Savage slid the rubber band off her ponytail and combed her hair with her fingers.

  “If you can’t reverse the effects of the virus, do you think you could still find a way to neutralize it?”

  “Um. I can try antibiotics or various poisons in acceptable concentrations, but I doubt it will work. Viruses invade cells, and punching into them with a chemical is, well, not easy. No. Anything I could do to kill it would likely kill the patient too.”

  “Put some samples together for me. All of the different DNAs or whatever. Something I can send to a lab. There’s a favor I can call in. Maybe they can do something with it.”

  “I thought you said we couldn’t afford to enlist outside help.”

  “I can’t afford to let my country fall to a bunch of squids. It’s an acceptable risk, and nobody will ever find out where the samples came from. They might start working on them though, and perhaps they’ll figure it out before it’s too late.”

  Stark’s voice buzzed from the radio on his desk. “Sir, we have a new contact dropping out of orbit.”

  “Shit.” There was no time to bother with the glasses. He left them on the desk as they cleared out of the room. The colonel made for the command center, and Savage returned upstairs.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a fainter contact then we are used to seeing, and it dropped from orbit late.”

  “So we have more time?”

  “Less time, sir. The steeper re-entry angle is going to plant them at the alien base in thirty minutes, maybe less. That’s if they don’t burn up. Might be a missile.”

  “Let me see the data. It could be an ICBM.”

  “A what?”

  “A nuke, Stark.”

  “Shit.”

  “Pull up the data. Give me the heading and trajectory. Okay. Yes, that. What was the velocity and altitude at first contact?”

  “Three hundred thousand feet, about twenty thousand miles per hour.”

  “What’s that in feet per second?”

  “Um.”

  “Don’t um me, figure it out.”

  Stark opened a calculator program on the computer, and fiddled with some numbers.

  “C’mon kid. The clock’s ticking.” He flicked a few switches on the com lines. “Team Alpha, get to hangar two. Get those blades spinning and get in the air.”

  “Twenty nine thousand, give or take.” said Stark.”

  “Well, it’s not a missile. That’s too fast for an orbital object. We need to start tracking where these fuckers are coming from.”

  “Course is changing. It’s definitely headed toward the alien base. Once it slows a little more I’ll confirm again.”

  The strobing echoes of the chopper blades rattled the room. The high pitched hiss and low drumming was enough to shake the whole base. Each hangar was a buried rectangular box, just large enough for the pilots to land without scraping the rotor blades. Overhead rolling doors were painted tan and coated with real dirt and sand to hide them from above. Every time the choppers spooled up, anyone awake in the base knew about it, and everyone else woke up.

  John burst through the door wearing coveralls. Little red lines from his pillow striped across his face. “What’s going on? We don’t have the wet gear yet.”

  “Relax, John.” The colonel was suddenly calmed by the thought. “Just an intercept mission. And this time I’m not even going to try taking prisoners. They want a fight? They got one.”

  The wafting of rotor blades steadied as they came up to full power, waiting on the strike team to load up before take off.

  Stark tapped the colonel on his shoulder. “Sir. I’ll need to put the nighthawks on a direct course. Otherwise they won’t get to the alien base in time to intercept the contact.”

  “They haven’t found us yet. Do it.” Colonel Crisp flicked some more switches on the board. “Engineering, pick up.”

  “Sir?”

  “Where’s Jacob?”

  “I think he’s sleeping.”

  “Well go wake him up, and send him down to the control room.”

  John sniffed the air. “What smells like booze?”

  “Shouldn’t you be loading up on a helicopter?”

  John smiled, “You.” He turned and walked out.

  “Something does smell like booze,” said Stark.

  “Mind your screen.”

  Stark focused. “Course heading, directly toward the alien base at Mach two.”

  “What’s that in feet per second?”

  Stark opened the calculator program again.

  “Stark. Relax, I’m only kidding. Bio lab, pick up.”

  “I’m here colonel.” Finally a refreshing voice.

  “Savage, get the doctors up and have them on standby. Is the medical unit ready yet?”

  “They’re still digging.”

  “Okay. Just make sure those guys are up and awake, so they’ll be ready if we bring back any wounded.”

  “Can do,” said Nicole.

  The recurring pounding of the walls changed pitch and gradually decreased in volume.

  “Sir,” said Stark. “Birds are in the air.”

  “Good.” The colonel leaned back from the desk, passing his gaze between the three monitors in front of him. This was the hard part. It was already past nine, and the helicopters would take nearly an hour to arrive on location.

  This may have been a war for the whole world, but the battles were being fought over the ruins of a tiny town in southern Utah. The chances of this being the only base of operations for the alien menace on Earth was remote, if not impossible. But he didn’t get to pick the battleground. He had to fight the war that was on his doorstep first, and figure out how to take the battle to them.

  “Ryan?” came another voice.

  Mark was standing in the doorway. Thin, wiry, and looking particularly worn out in his tweed suit and felt hat.

  “Who the hell let you in here?”

  “Your mother.”

  “Ha. Alright. Let’s go in my o
ffice. We have a lot to talk about. Stark, keep me up on anything important.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He followed his local gun runner to the next door.

  “This one?”

  “Yep.” As his old friend opened the door, he said, “Take a seat.”

  “Been dipping into your private stash, I see.”

  “Something to take the edge off. Operation was falling apart out here, and it helps me to be, oh what was it my ex-wife used to nag about? More creative? More sympathetic? Something like that.”

  “I see.”

  Mark sat down in one of the three chairs available, and the colonel crossed to the other side of the desk. He put the empty glasses back into the liquor drawer, and crossed his arms on the desk.

  “You got some bodies for me?”

  “I do. We clear on the contract?”

  “As a bell, Crispy. I don’t know if the buyer will be able to help, but they make a habit of attracting the brightest minds to serve their purpose, or any other purpose that pays well enough.”

  “As long as they do it fast. You know how long it takes for most manufacturers to go from concept to design? I’m supplying the engines. They need to strap them onto a sturdy airframe and make sure it will meet the requirements.”

  “How’s your Bitcoin account looking?”

  “Slim. Did you ask them what the bodies and virus would be worth?”

  “The cartels weren’t contacted directly. They’re still battling with the idea of a secret alien invasion. But once they see one of the squid things, I’m sure their eyes will light up with dollar signs. I’m surprised the government hasn’t taken them.”

  “The government doesn’t know that we have them. I’m sure some of your other clients are in the same situation.”

  Mark nodded. “Quite.”

  “If I’m going to kill these fuckers, then I need a method of longer range strikes. We’re going to end up with our own little air force out here.”