As Good as Dead

by O. J. Anderson

Chapter 4

Buffalo, New York
November 5
1930 hours

Jack Creed found his role as a protector at an early age. As a boy he instinctively grasped the necessities: planning, teamwork, equipment, firepower... and cool resolution in facing the monsters of the Forces of Darkness that enslave and threaten to devour humanity.

“This must be our guy,” Jack Creed says, looking out the van window across the empty shopping mall parking lot. He watches the young man sprint toward the van, his breath chugging in the cold air like a locomotive. “Said he was being hunted. I didn’t know he meant tonight.”

Doc slides the van door open.

Arms flailing, Joshua Newcomb sprints the final leg of the parking lot, jumps over an island and dives into the black van. Bellyflops onto the deck and sort of crab-crawls towards the rear — near the grenade bin. Between gasps for air he shouts, “Drive! Drive! They’re coming.”

Doc closes the van’s door but they don’t move. Jack twists around in his commander’s chair and says, “You must be Newcomb.”

“Go! Go! They’re after me. Please go!”

Jack shakes his head. “We don’t run from anyone. Calm down.”

Still breathing heavily, shaking with fear, Newcomb looks around the inside of the van. Sees the array of weaponry racked against the wall. Rifles. Machine guns. Bazookas. Yellow and black radioactive symbols everywhere. Bunch of weird stuff. And he sees the four hard faces staring down at him. After a couple minutes and a few deep breaths he starts to relax. These guys look a lot tougher than the ones trying to kill him. He’s safe now.

From the fax he received approximately eight hours ago Jack already knows this involves aliens, and he’s not all that excited about it; couple greys loose in the city. Jack had been skeptical at first, but this kid actually got a photo with his cell phone: two bug-eyed aliens wearing overcoats and hats.

Intellectually, it’s not that big a deal, mundane even; but logistically, it’s a swirling turdstorm of tactical risks. City jobs are like trying to demo the proverbial needle while leaving the haystack unscathed. Jack kicks around the idea of pre-wiring an old building in a safe area, lure the aliens inside, implode it.

“Okay,” Jack says calmly. “What’s going on?”

Newcomb starts to say something, but then stops himself. It comes out like a hiccup. He then organizes his thoughts. Lips moving silently. Looking for a good place to start. A minute later he begins:

“A little over a year ago, right after I started working for the Tribune, I ran a story about a German defense contractor who had bought a mountain in Colorado. They were supposed to turn it into an alpine training area for the Olympics or resort or some nonsense. It’s now called Khoeler Mountain, and we all knew it was a load of bull. Something was up.

“Right after the story ran I started taking flak. From all directions. People were going far out of their way to hassle me. It was a concerted effort, and getting way more attention than it probably deserved, but not the kind of attention that I’d expected; not many people seemed to care that foreign companies were being allowed to buy land in this country. This tidbit of information went by largely unnoticed by most people.

“But, being somewhat stubborn I decide to look into this further. Turned out that Khoeler was not really a German company at all. I traced it right back here to America. It’s actually a covert subdivision of an American intelligence agency. The Defense Intelligence Agency. The mother of all intel agencies. Now, the obvious question is why—”

Jack stops him; doesn’t care a bit about agencies, German defense contractors, or mountains. Now would be a good time to make a long story short.”

“Okay. Uh...” His mind on fast-forward. “I’m being hunted by a Zeta-Reticulan hit team.”

“Right.”

Nodding. “Because I know too much.”

“Of course you do.”

“Khoeler Mountain contains a Deep Underground Military Base. It’s a subterranean biosphere for the Zetas and a DNA manufacturing center for the Alliance. They’re trying to create a Zeta-human cross chromosome that they’ll be able to link in to the sequence without going through generations of interbreeding.”

“Mm. So humans will be able to live in space.”

“Not quite,” Joshua says. “That’s what most people think: find another planet and start over. Maybe some natural resources, something useful, if only answers to the big questions. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. Not for a long long time anyway. Even if humans were capable of living in outer space on some other planet, we still don’t have the technology to get anywhere.”

On the subject of technology, Jack knows otherwise. But the kid’s point still stands. Getting someplace decent is only a small part of the equation; the logistical effort and infrastructure creation would be far beyond monumental and would take many lifetimes to accomplish. Unless, Jack thinks, the Zetas have something already in place. But this is extremely doubtful, as Zeta Reticulans are known for their malevolence.

Joshua continues: “Now, I’m no expert, but I’ve done extensive research and have even been in communication with those who are. We know those stars are at least eight billion years older than our sun. And it is widely believed that the Zeta Reticuli system is dying. They’re not going to burn out anytime soon — not in the way that we think of time, anyway — but their energy is decreasing enough to have a profound effect on the system’s planets. They’re looking to relocate. Soon.”

Jack: “So they’re coming here.”

“That’s correct. Right now, you and I are sitting on the most valuable land mass in the galaxy. The North American continent.”

“And the government is helping them.”

“So to speak,” Joshua says. “Our government was hacked a long time ago. Corrupted. It’s been bought and paid for by a shadowy faction in collusion with the aliens.”

“The Cabal,” Jack says.

Joshua’s eyes widen. He isn’t used to hearing other people use the word. In fact, he stopped using it himself as it immediately caused others to label him a nutty conspiracy theorist — just the way they had been programmed to think. But The Cabal is real, of this he is sure. He can feel it in his bones. “Yes,” he tells Jack. “That’s right.”

“And they’ll need to kill off about five billion of us to make room for our new friends.”

Joshua laughs. “Right again. But the funny thing about the Zetas is their extreme vulnerability. They’re hyper-intelligent, more than we can even imagine, I think; yet, they’re also physically frail. They can’t fight. A gang of school kids could take them on. An invasion as we have come to think is completely out of the question. They could be wiped out easily.”

A piece of the puzzle falls into place in Jack’s mind. Not only is North America the most valuable piece of real estate, it is also the location of the most powerful military in the history of mankind. That’s a good thing if you’re on the same team, but the teams are not exactly clear at this point.

And who will be giving the orders that the military will be dutifully following? And what about this rapidly growing private army sector, these rats creeping through the dark alleys of society, beholden to no code and no one other than their paymaster. Who will they be working for?

As though he were reading Jack’s mind, Joshua says, “Don’t ask me why. It doesn’t make any sense. The more I look into this, the more confused I get.” He unzips his jacket. It’s warm inside the van. Probably has something to do with all the radioactivity symbols everywhere.

Jack thinks about the DUMB in Colorado filled with aliens. Now there’s something he can sink his teeth into. A hard target. Tons of open space and terrain features. Wide-open fields of fire. No civilians for miles and miles. Cover and concealment to die for. Jack allows himself a brief daydream of heavy defilade fire behind a snow covered peak. Sweet. A real battleground for a change.

He punches up the name Khoeler on the computer. Wants to get some satellite photos.

“Don’t bother,” Joshua says when he sees the screen. “All images are blocked. We’ve tried.”

Jack grunts. Nothing available. He’ll reroute the squad satellite, but it’s going to take a while.

“I know a guy,” Joshua says. “He’s got pics. His group can hack into NASA. He knows what’s going on there. Got answers.”

Jack: “Mm-hm.”

“I was supposed to meet him in D.C., but I got held up — as you can see. He was supposed to have some information for me. Said I was close, but missing a big part of what’s going on. I told him I’d take it public.”

“Got a name?”

“No. We’ve only been in touch online.”

“All right, kid, listen. We’re gonna look into this Zeta problem for you. If things are going down the way you say they are, then we’ll set up a meeting with your pen pal.”

“Okay. Great. So, what do we do?”

* * *

His apartment building is up ahead. No one else on the street.

Joshua walks cautiously. Stiff, like a plank of wood, as though he’s expecting to get jumped any second. Maybe he will. Shoulders hunched with tension and his fists rammed down into his jeans pockets, he passes under the yellow glow of a streetlight. Continues to the stoops.

As soon as he puts his foot on the first step he hears the car door close.

An arctic breeze blows through Joshua’s central nervous system, paralyzing him in fear for a moment. But he doesn’t hear anything more from behind. After a few deep breaths, he turns around.

It’s them. Two Zeta Reticulans wearing overcoats and wide-brimmed hats sitting atop their bulbous heads. One of them has a weapon. Looks like some kind of vaccination gun.

The reporter begins to hyperventilate.

One of the Zetas takes a step forward. His head explodes. Disappears into a vapor, the hat flipping in the air for a second. The body collapses to the sidewalk.

Then the second Zeta’s head explodes. Poof, completely silent. Like someone teed up a pumpkin and whacked it with an atomic 1-iron.

The body collapses a second later.

Joshua doesn’t move. He can’t. That was too freakin’ weird.

A quarter of a mile down the road, three pairs of headlights come on. The vans pull forward to Joshua’s position and roll to a stop. The side door of the command van slides open. An arm inside waves him in. Joshua gets in the van; sees one of the men jacking rounds from a sniper rifle. The door closes. They head for D.C.

* * *

Proceed to Chapter 5...