Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot Read online

  A flash of blue-white light left him blinking as an alien warrior team opened fire, shooting down two of the gang members. Ed fired back madly and had the satisfaction of seeing one of their heads explode before running away from the building. The alien warriors seemed to be capable of taking an astonishing amount of damage without slowing down, but he’d never heard of one surviving a headshot before. If he’d been designing a warrior race, he would have built in a high degree of pain tolerance and multiple backup organs as well, although he perhaps wouldn’t have made them so ugly. The aliens would have had difficulty getting laid in a whorehouse with an unlimited credit card from the most famous bank in the world.

  “Ed, what…?”

  “Keep moving,” Ed snapped, as one of the gang members slowed. There was no time now. A shadow high overhead announced the presence of one of the alien fighters; a moment later, a shockwave knocked him to the ground as bright flashes of light shattered the surrounding buildings. The alien ROE seemed considerably less limited than the Marines had had in Iraq, he noted absently. They were willing to tear apart the entire area to get at the insurgents who’d dared to attack them. He hoped that their sensors weren't much better than human systems. Discovering that the aliens could track them effortlessly would really ruin their day. “Don’t stop for anything!”

  Larger alien craft were orbiting overhead now, including a pair of transports. They were about the same size as C-5 Galaxy Transport aircraft and served a similar purpose, transporting troops and weapons into a deployment zone. Hundreds of alien warriors were swarming out of their holds now, jumping down to secure the area. If they reacted quickly enough, they might cut off the gang members before they could escape and capture – or kill – them. That couldn’t be allowed, even at the risk of his own life.

  The bag was right where he’d left it, waiting by the entrance to the underground. He’d feared that someone would steal it – with the economic crash and the alien blockade, people were desperate – although once they opened the bag, they’d probably faint. The Stinger missile set had been configured to punch through the drive field of an alien craft, yet it had no other use, unless as an improvised antitank missile. There was no point in using it for that.

  “Get everyone down into the basement and out of here,” he said, as the gang members ran past him. He’d started the day with thirty half-trained men. It looked as if he’d lost at least ten of them in the brief encounter. The alien craft were drifting over the area now, watching for signs of trouble. Bright flashes of light announced that they’d found a target and were pounding it from high above. The bastards might not even be shooting at insurgents, but civilians trying to hide from them. “Keep moving!”

  “Yes, sir,” Vassar said. He was one of the more intelligent gang members and would have made a fine soldier, had he escaped the ghetto. He would probably end his days as a gang lord, if he didn’t get thrown into prison or killed first. The latter was looking more likely every day. “Good luck.”

  I work for a living, Ed thought, as he hoisted the Stinger onto his shoulder and took aim at the nearest alien craft. The problem with using any kind of missile against the alien ships was that the missile had to pack enough punch to disrupt their drive fields and either destroy them or send them crashing to Earth. It wasn't something human designers had had to worry about before the aliens arrived and so they hadn’t produced handheld SAM missiles with enough punch. One of the independent nations might produce a new design soon enough, but they might never reach America. Don’t call me sir, damn it.

  The seeker unit growled as it locked on to the target and he squeezed the trigger. The missile leapt from the tube and raced right towards its target. The alien craft had no time to react. It took them mere seconds to adjust their drive fields to move faster, yet no one could have reacted in time to escape. The missile struck the alien fighter amidships and sent it crashing down towards the ground. A moment later it crashed and a massive fireball rose up in the distance. It was hard to tell from his position, but it looked as if the alien craft had come down on their heads. It would definitely ruin their day.

  He scooped up the bag and ran into the building, down the stairs and into the basement. A few days of hard work had opened a link between the basement and the vast network of sewers and underground tunnels below Chicago, allowing the gang members to come and go at will. It had astonished even him to learn just how many tunnels there were under the city, an odd mixture of used and disused sewers, old civil defence bunkers, underground transport links and a thousand other oddities. With care, they could avoid being caught for months, perhaps years. He doubted that even the aliens would be willing to flush the tunnels with troops to dig them out, although gas remained a more pressing concern. They had gas masks from the old civil defence stockpiles, but no MOPP suits. He took a moment to throw a switch and prime the bomb, before diving down into the tunnels. The darkness no longer threw him. It was an old friend.

  “Sir?”

  “I told you to run,” Ed snapped. Vassar remaining behind was a surprise, even though he supposed he should have expected it. “What would happen if we were both caught?”

  “One of the others would take over,” Vassar said, unperturbed. Ed suspected that the only reason Vassar called him ‘sir’ was to annoy him. “You’re more important than any one of us.”

  Ed shrugged. “Never mind that for now,” he said. A dull rumble in the distance suggested that the aliens were gathering to avenge the deaths of their fallen brethren. He was rather surprised it had taken them that long. “We need to get out of here.”

  They ran down the slippery tunnel, heading towards one of the disused sections. It had once been a home for the homeless, somewhere where liberal eyes never visited or understood. The homeless hadn’t wanted charity, or pity, merely a place to lay their head and rest. Behind them, the ground shook. Ed had rigged up the building with enough explosive to bring it crashing down, burying their entrance under a pile of rubble. The aliens might dig down to locate the entrance, or they might give it up as a loss. There was no way to know how they’d react. The lights flickered once as the disruption shook the network, but didn’t fail. It was almost a relief.

  “We hit them,” Vassar said, delighted. Ed recognised the post-battle rush from his own early days in the Marines. It was the joy of knowing that you were still alive, having tested yourself in the oldest game of all. “We hurt the bastards!”

  Ed said nothing. The truth was that no one expected the gangs to do more than hurt the aliens from time to time. The blockade would make it difficult to smuggle in more weapons and ammunition from outside, while the aliens would tighten their grip on the city and encourage more collaborators to enter their service. There was a good chance that they would lose the war, yet their deaths would buy time for the rest of the resistance…

  He smiled, grimly. Who knew? Perhaps the horse would learn to sing after all.

  Chapter Two

  Washington DC, USA (Occupied)

  Day 95

  “Karen,” a voice said, as she entered the room. “How nice to see you again!”

  Karen Lawton blinked in surprise. She hadn’t expected to discover that the aliens knew who she was – indeed, after the war had begun, she’d tried hard to keep anyone from discovering her real identity. She’d detected the first signals from the alien mothership as it approached the Earth and some people had blamed her for the war, torching her house back home in California. Her dreams of fame and fortune – dulled by a growing awareness that the aliens were not all they seemed – had died then. They’d blamed her for the alien contact, yet she hadn’t even been the first human to discover the existence of alien life.

  Three months ago, an alien craft had crash-landed outside a USAF base, revealing the existence of aliens to the government. They hadn’t told the people anything until after the aliens made open contact, yet by then it had been too late. The aliens had woven a tissue of lies around a kernel of truth and successfull
y split America from her allies, before launching a devastating invasion that had culminated in the Fall of Washington and the occupation of the entire country. Karen had witnessed the events from Washington, where she’d been staying along with her parents under Secret Service protection. The morons who’d blamed her for the invasion had had no idea that she was right under their noses and, after Washington had been occupied, she’d kept her head down until one of the alien collaborators had given her a note ordering her to attend a meeting in one of the buildings they’d taken over.

  “Ah…Director,” she stammered. Daisy Fairchild had been the Director of SETI when the alien signal had been detected, yet Karen had lost contact with her in the chaos following the alien invasion. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to discover that she’d landed on her feet. Daisy hadn’t been a dreamer, but a ruthlessly practical Director with a politician’s eye for opportunity. She’d turned the alien contact into a glittering opportunity for SETI, even though it had turned nasty after the aliens invaded. “I didn’t know that you were here!

  “I’d have called for you earlier if I’d known that you were here, but our friends don’t have a complete register of everyone caught in the lockdown,” Daisy said, waving Karen to a sofa. “Would you like a drink? I have coffee, or perhaps something a little stronger…?”

  “Coffee would be fine, thank you,” Karen said, feeling her senses reel. Coffee had become a rarity in Washington after the invasion – the aliens simply weren't letting anything through the blockade surrounding the city. The remaining cans were being hoarded by people who had no intention of giving them up for free. Karen had heard rumours that people were paying for goods and services with coffee rather than anything else, even sex. “How did you get it into the city?”

  “It’s easy if you know the right people,” Daisy assured her. Her voice became rather snide. “One must embrace change and accept the new reality.”

  “I see,” Karen said, although she didn’t. It was starting to sound as if Daisy was collaborating openly with the aliens. It would be just like her to attach herself to the most powerful force in the area and bend it to her will. “Why did you want me here?”

  “The truth is that the war is lost,” Daisy said, simply. “Those of us who work with the People…”

  “The People?”

  “The aliens call themselves The People,” Daisy explained. “I don’t know if it’s merely a translation or something else, but…who are we to argue? They took America and they’ll take the entire world. They can call themselves whatever they like.”

  With an understanding that we’re not People, Karen thought, coldly. Semantics had never been her thing, but she did understand from debating clubs that allowing your opponents to define the terms used for the debate ensured that you would lose. If Daisy was collaborating, the aliens would have a window into the human world they wouldn’t otherwise have, or perhaps they would. Daisy was right. The aliens looked strong and strength always attracted people who wanted to survive, or gain power for themselves, or exploit the aliens for their own purposes. Hell, there were still people who believed that the aliens had come to save the human race from itself.

  “I’ve been working with them over the last week to assist them in their project,” Daisy continued. “I need an assistant and I was delighted when their system spat out your name. You’ve worked with me before and I’m sure that you could work with me again.”

  That, Karen knew, was pushing it. She’d been a simple radio specialist at SETI and she’d rarely laid eyes on the Director, apart from annual events and parties. They’d been pushed together after the aliens had made contact, but Daisy had been trying to exploit her fame and the alien contact for SETI – and her own benefit. Karen had never trained as an assistant, never even thought about becoming an assistant…and then it occurred to her that it didn’t matter. The aliens would hardly need a three-year training course and a useless degree to hire her. They were already hiring thousands of collaborators and promising them better treatment, in exchange for loyal service.

  “And there will be benefits for you as well,” Daisy continued. “You could rise high within their service, or have your own private access to food supplies and equipment without having to stand in line and wait for someone to feed you. You could…”

  Karen listened with half an ear. She wanted to throw her offer back in Daisy’s face and tell her to get fucked, yet she didn’t quite dare. The aliens had taken people away before and probably wouldn’t hesitate to take Karen away as well, if Daisy told them that she was a threat to their security. They’d rounded up soldiers and policemen and sent them somewhere – no one knew where, even though there were horrifying rumours – and she didn’t want to join them. For all she knew, the aliens were using them for their sadistic experiments. She didn’t want to end her days being dissected by an alien scientist.

  And it was an opportunity. If she was right at the heart of the collaborator machine, she could do a great deal of damage…

  “I understand,” she said, finally. “I’ll be glad to join you.”

  Daisy beamed. “Excellent,” she said. “You won’t regret it for a second.”

  The next couple of hours passed in a blur. The collaborators had taken over a number of buildings and installed all the luxuries of home. Karen was given a suite to herself, with a massive bath and a chance to wash, before a pair of servants came in and gave her a complete makeover. She had never been particularly vain as a child, but the chance to dress up again – and wash the grime out of her body – was invigorating. It tempted her, even as she realised that it was a trap. The two weeks she’d spent in Washington under occupation, deprived of essential luxuries, had convinced her that anyone who wanted a simpler life was an idiot. The aliens could tempt people just by turning the power on and granting them coffee and better food. The joy of wearing clean clothes again was almost orgasmic.

  “You’ll be attending the party later in the day,” one of the servants said. Karen had no idea that such people still existed in America. She’d never been so pampered in her life. It was easy to believe that someone treated like that for every day of their life would grow up into a spoiled brat. “What about this dress here? It would go well with your hair.”

  “And show off everything I had to every eye in the room,” Karen said, still wondering about the party. Who would hold a party when half the city was starving? “Can you find something more demure?”

  “Maybe this one,” the servant said, holding up a green dress. “It’s rather less revealing. It’ll just need a little bit of alteration and it will be suitable.”

  “I suppose,” Karen said. A thought occurred to her and she leaned forward. “What’s your name?”

  “Jasmine, Miss,” the girl said. “That’s Jessica over there. The one in the bathroom cleaning up the mess is Jennifer.”

  Karen stared at her. She was tall and devastatingly pretty, with brown curly hair and a brilliant smile. She couldn’t be much older than eighteen – Jessica looked barely older than sixteen, with red hair in pigtails – yet what was she doing as a maid?

  “We used to work for one of the very wealthy families,” Jasmine explained, when Karen asked. “We had to take care of all of their needs – and I mean all of them. It beat being out on the streets and trying to take care of ourselves, but when the Orcs landed they donated us to them as servants for their pet humans. You’re being nicer than most of them. There’s a spoiled brat two doors down who seems to think that she owns the world. Her daddy used to be a senator or something.”

  There were a hundred questions Karen wanted to ask, but she didn’t know how to formulate the questions…and she wasn't really sure that she wanted the answers. It was a window into a whole other world, one where wealth equalled power and ensured that the lucky few could have whatever they wanted, without regard for the law or human decency. None of the servants appeared to be illegal immigrants, or other powerless humans, but ordinary girls from the streets of
Washington. The hell of it was that they had a better life than many of their fellow citizens.

  “You’ll understand at the party,” Jasmine said, as soon as she had finished working on Karen’s hair. She hadn’t stopped even while talking. “Wait until you see the people who have been gathered together to turn the country into an alien paradise.”

  She closed her mouth as Daisy stepped into the room, without knocking. “It’s time to go,” she announced, as Karen came to her feet. She glanced briefly at the three maids. “You are dismissed.”

  Jasmine bowed, a bow that exposed most of her cleavage, and they retreated from the suite, closing the door behind them. “They’re one of the luxuries for those who cooperate,” Daisy said, dryly. “It’s best to just ignore them and concentrate on keeping your eye on the ball.”

  “Of course,” Karen said, slowly. The maids probably heard and saw everything. Befriending them would definitely serve her well. “Did you arrange a handsome prince to escort me to the ball?”

  Daisy started, and then giggled nervously. “I’m afraid not,” she admitted. “There are plenty of handsome…well, attractive…well…men who will be at the party, but you won’t have time to take one home. After you’ve been presented to the People, we’ll get something to eat, perhaps a dance or two, and then we’ll be going straight to work.”

  Karen frowned. “If that’s true,” she said, “why are we going to the party at all?”

  “Because Ethos has insisted that we all be there and we cannot defy him,” Daisy explained. “Come along, my dear. There’s too much to be done.”

  Karen followed her down the long corridor, looking from side to side as they passed rare paintings and statues. The hotel had once catered to the very wealthy alone and it would have cost her a year’s salary to even spend a day in the building, unless she worked as a maid. Now, it catered to collaborators and welcomed anyone who served the aliens, or even the aliens themselves. She found herself wondering what use, if any, the aliens made of the maids. The thought was so absurd that she almost giggled.