CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pain.
Jake woke up in agony. The
sky above was still dark and ghostly, though now the Aurora was
churning constantly, and much more violently than it was. Jake
groaned, because it was the only thing he had strength to do. For a
long moment, he didn't have a clue where he was. He only knew there
was concrete under him, a green angry glow above, and pain in every
movement of his poor battered body.
Pain. Pain means you're
not dead yet.
Then memory caught up, and
Jake forced his eyes to open. He was still at the edge of the
Festival. The skies were empty of Saucers, and the streets were empty
of people. He was surrounded by scorch marks, and the faint smell of
grilled meat made him realize that he had been burned too.
How am I alive? He
thought bleakly to himself, as he forced his body to turn over. They
had to have seen me. Why didn't they finish me off? Did they think I
was already dead? Sci-Fi says they should have better sensors than
that.
The large grassy Town Square
was smoldering. Spot fires were still burning all over the place, the
stage was nothing but burnt sticks and smoky haze. Jake's blurry
vision started to clear and he became more aware of the scorch marks
around him.
"The fire." He
said aloud. "The fire hid me. Heat Seeking Saucer-Drones."
One mystery down.
Jake tested his limbs
painfully, checking them out. He seemed to be more or less in one
heavily battered piece. He tried to stand up, and nearly collapsed.
He managed to catch himself before smacking his face against the
concrete again.
He rose unsteadily... And
the first thing he saw was the Town Hall, and the big black Spaceship
parked on top of it. It was right in front of him. Jake suddenly felt
horribly exposed, and tried to run. Fire lanced through his body and
he gasped for air. Running wasn't an option.
Jake was limping for part of
it. Though he was limping off the street, he couldn't help but look
up at the menacing thing from another world.
"You beat me." He
croaked at the Ship. "You beat me. You won."
His father had thought him
insane for even talking about them, and his whole family was held
prisoner now. His best friend was dead, slain by their weapons. The
girl he had fallen for had changed sides, gone to them willingly and
left him and the others to die. His own brother was gone, probably
playing games on the Mothership with his new friends...
The whole Town was sealed
off from the rest of the world, and the only two people left in the
universe that he could trust had disappeared without a trace.
Jake limped to the Diner,
and went one street further. Jess knew about the Diner. He couldn't
rest there. He made it to the Supermarket, and collapsed in
exhaustion against the rear wall, his back up against the dumpster.
Their vague and pathetic
excuse for a plan had crumbled, because Jess had known the whole
thing. She'd probably told them everything by now...
Or had she? Admittedly, the
five of them didn't have much of a strategy. Just an alien Gizmo and
an idea that they could get another one. So far since coming back to
town, all they'd done was sneak to Tracy's house, only to be driven
out, and then sneak to Mrs Blanchard's for supplies. The five of them
weren't acting like an army.
Jake blinked. Mayor Grady
had said that all they wanted was their device back. Grady had told
them point blank that the Greys didn't care about five kids who
figured out the truth a half-hour before the rest of them. They were
more concerned with the loss of the Gizmo...
And they'd already given one
to Mrs Blanchard.
It was a vague, tiny hope to
cling to: That his only defense against the Greys might be that they
didn't care about him.
His watch was broken, but
the town clock said that he'd been unconscious for two hours. It was
almost noon.
Middle of the day, and
still dark. Jake
thought numbly. He was physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and
mentally overwhelmed. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a
thousand years, but deep in his bones, he knew he didn't have that
kind of time.
The Supermarket had been
broken into. Getting inside was easy. There was nothing left on the
shelves, even before the endless night had begun, but Jake limped his
way through to the employee lockers, and went looking for first aid
kits. He found one and bandaged up his more obvious damage. He also
found a set of clothes that was close enough to his size. He didn't
like to think about what that meant. The only ones his age that
worked here were friends of his, and one of them hadn't come back to
get changed into his own clothes.
The sweater covered over
most of the bandages, and Jake sat on the tiled floor again, peering
out the front windows.
"So." He asked
himself. "What now?"
He took inventory. He had
nothing. Just the Gizmo. He considered his options. He couldn't go
home. He couldn't stay here. If he tried to get to the Town Hall he'd
be seen, and Father Rorke was still at the door, checking over each
person. "What are the odds that Jess has spoken to you?" He
asked himself rhetorically.
What do I do now?
He could try and find Marie.
He had no idea if she and Pierce were even alive.
He could try and escape. But
the Town was surrounded by the Dead Zone in an unbroken circle. No
matter which way he went, he could only go so far.
He could try and hide, wait
it out. He'd tried that already with four of his friends. It hadn't
worked, and it had left them with more questions than answers.
They've still got my
parents. They've still got my brother.
"And what the hell am I
supposed to do about that?" Jake groaned to himself.
Something shifted behind
him, and Jake froze. He shut his eyes slowly, playing dead. Something
was moving through the Supermarket, creeping around, and Jake was in
no shape for a fight. He could barely move, and playing dead was his
only real option.
The footsteps were slow and
heavy. Something large was trying to be quiet. Jake hesitated. They
didn't sound like Greys. He kept his eyes shut anyway. They could
control people. A weight settled next to him, and Jake focused all
his willpower on keeping perfectly still.
"It's Jake Colbert!"
A voice hissed.
"Is he dead?" The
response came from the other side. "Cause if he is, I got dibs
on his backpack."
Jake opened his eyes.
"You're all heart, Lockett."
Both teenagers jumped back
from Jake with a squawk. He'd recognized their voices immediately.
Grant and Lockett were the same two idiots that had put a crop circle
in the field while he was out of town. The two of them were infamous
for setting off firecrackers in mailboxes. Nobody trusted them with
anything more valuable than their own shoes, and somehow they had
managed to evade the flying saucers for the entire unnatural night.
Grant was closer and got
over it first. "You look like homemade death." He told Jake
lightly, and helped him to his feet. "What are you doing here?"
"Funny." Jake
commented. "I was about to ask you two the same thing. Most
everyone with a brain would be running away from the middle of town
right now."
Lockett leaned back and
kicked out the front panel of the Supermarket's vending machines. He
found one bottle of water left, and dove on it like a wild animal.
"Can't do much good running away from the middle of things."
He said and slugged down a deep drink.
"What?" Jake was
stunned. "You guys want to get into the mix with an Alien
Spaceship?"
"Hell no." Grant
snorted. "Who's suicidal enough to actually go into
the Mothership?"
Jake couldn't help the
ironic smirk. "Then what are
you doing?"
"My cousin Greg is...
walking. I'm gonna get him back." Grant said. "You know me,
Jake; I never had a brother, and I really could have used one."
"And if he's goin' then
I'm goin'." Lockett added with fierce loyalty to his best
friend. "Been a hell of a night."
Grant cackled. "It's
almost fun. We play tag with Aliens all the time in video games."
"Yeah, but we take a
lot of breaks for junk food." Lockett snorted. "Less fun
this time."
Grant reached behind the
cash register and pulled out a bag of potato chips and tossed it
over. "I told you the old bat was holding out on us!"
Lockett yanked the bag open
and stuffed a fistful of chips in his mouth.
"Did you see anyone
else?" Jake asked them both seriously. "Anyone else who
escaped?"
"Ad hees..." Grant
swallowed. "At least a dozen that we saw." He said lightly.
"Two of them survived."
Jake felt his heart stop.
"Survived?"
Grant nodded and slugged
down some water. "The Aliens. They... They were hunting. Like it
was a show. The Saucers ran them down, then the Greys zap them. What
I don't get, is why they hunt some, and the others all just follow
orders?"
Jake hesitated for a second,
and told them. "The ones that follow orders are Implanted."
He explained. "They have trackers in their heads. I know,
because I had one and I got mine out."
Both of them looked at him
like he'd just offered them the Holy Grail. "You got yours out?
You can do that? You can make it so that they can't control you?"
Jake pulled the Gizmo out of
his inside jacket pocket; where it was, unbelievably, still in one
piece. "With this. And I'll use it to help you." He held it
away from their seeking grip. "But there's a price tag. When you
grab your friend... I have to be there to take his place."
"Why?" Grant asked
in disbelief. "Because, you know... those guys are the ones
going toward the Mothership. I don't know what goes on in there, but
if was something good, they probably wouldn't use Mind Control!"
Lockett peeked out the
windows, and then looked at Jake. "Listen, Jake... I saw Zack."
Jake nodded thickly. "So
did I."
"Charging in there to
fight the monsters won't bring him back." Lockett said kindly.
His tone was more sincere than Jake had ever heard from him.
"It's Ben." Jake
argued. "They have Ben."
"Your brother?"
Grant breathed.
"My parents too."
Jake nodded. "So... I get that it's an insane idea, but I have
to try."
Silence.
"Okay. Well, you got a
deal." Grant told Jake. "We watched them for a bit, and I
think they're gonna come right past this Supermarket on their way to
Main Street. Which means there's going to be a chance to grab one of
them before they go around the corner of the building and get in the
Spaceship's sight line."
Lockett peeked out the
windows again. "I can see them. They're at the end of the
street, but sleepwalkers don't move fast. We got maybe three
minutes."
The three of them got
organized, ready to pounce out the back door.
"You wanna know
something funny?" Grant said quietly. "We were the ones
that put that crop circle into the middle of the corn. We thought
it'd be a funny joke, y'know?"
Jake smirked. "Yeah, I
heard that was you."
"Something to mock all
the idiots who thought that alien abductions were real." Lockett
snorted.
Shadows moved outside the
window and everyone froze. He followed the shapes with only his eyes
for a second, and relaxed. It wasn't them. It was another collection
of sleepwalking human victims.
"Less than two streets
before they get within sight of the Town Hall." Grant hissed.
"Ready?"
Lockett was smiling with a
dangerous energy. "Oh, I was born
ready for this!"
They all held their breath
as the moment came. Grant was behind the door, and held it open, just
the tiniest bit, enough that it looked closed, but Jake and Lockett
could peek out and check for people walking past.
The shadows of sleepwalking
people shuffled past, and Jake could make out Grant counting softly,
keeping track of how many had walked past...
"Now!" Grant
hissed, almost silent, and the door flew open. All three of them
lunged out of the Supermarket storeroom, toward the sleepwalking
people. They were lined up, shortest to tallest, and the last in the
row Jake recognized from school. Grant and Lockett grabbed him by the
shoulders, and hoisted him off his feet enough to haul him back into
the Supermarket storeroom.
It was chilling how quiet
Greg was. He didn't fight back, didn't shout, or even gasp in
surprise at finding himself yanked off his feet unexpectedly. He just
kept pushing against them, trying to get into line again. Grant and
Lockett held him in place as Jake swept up the Gizmo and started
hitting buttons.
Greg twitched hard for a
moment, then collapsed in the grip of his cousin.
"What the hell did that
thing do?" Grant demanded.
"Wait for it."
Jake told him.
Greg got his feet under him,
and yawned hugely. "Wha... what's going on?" He looked like
he'd just woken up from a quick nap.
Jake didn't bother to stick
around any longer. "I gotta move. Good luck!"
"You too, Jake. Be
careful!" Grant called softly after him.
Jake hurried to catch up as
quietly as he could, and fell into step at the back of the row.
Barely able to walk straight, limping along in pain, Jake actually
fit right in with the rest of the shuffling sleepwalkers. They made
their way slowly toward the Town Hall, going right across the
Festival Grounds. The Implanted people didn't care about the spot
fires, or the debris, if they were even aware of them at all.
Jake very pointedly did not
turn to look as they passed Zack's body. But out of the corner of his
eye, Jake was certain that somebody had laid a jacket over his
remains.
Marie must have made it
out.
The two rows of people made
it all the way to the Town Hall steps and stopped walking. A moment
later the doors opened, and Father Rorke looked out over them. He had
the town census and he began comparing the faces in front of him to
the list in his hand. Jake didn't make eye contact, not even when
Rorke's gaze fixed on him specifically.
Rorke was methodical: He
found each person, checked the name. He found the next, he checked
the name. The routine was slow and reliable, and nobody seemed to be
in any great hurry. Jake was at the back of the line, and knew the
odds were against him. The lines were organized by height, and Jake
was in the wrong place.
Father Rorke came down the
line... and paused when he arrived at Jake. Rorke looked at Jake,
looked at his list, then leaned a little closer, looking carefully at
Jake's face. Jake put all his energy, all his desperation into
keeping his expression blank.
Rorke looked past Jake to
the zoned out woman to his left, and checked the list again. Jake
didn't know why he wondered. He knew the girl's name. It was Ella
Collins. She sat behind him in English class. He remembered she had a
crush on the teacher, and she always had cucumber sandwiches...
Rorke had christened her as
a baby, but it didn't show as he calmly ticked her name off the list,
and returned to the head of the line, opening the door for them. The
two rows of people calmly trudged up the stairs, heading into the
Town Hall.
Father Rorke closed the door
behind them and they all came to a stop. The door between the lobby
and the main hallway was closed. Rorke moved towards it, looking
bored.
Jake kept his eyes forward,
drawing the blueprint of the Town Hall in his head. Beyond the lobby
was the main hallway, which lead to all the rooms, the staircase,
most of the windows...
And then a hand clapped down
on his shoulder. Jake hadn't dared look around and never saw it
coming, so he smothered a shout as he was hauled out of the line.
Father Rorke hauled him away
from the others and into a small office behind the reception desk.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Fear gave way instantly to
anger and Jake pushed Rorke's hands off him. "I think if anyone
should be explaining themselves, it's you."
"You were free. You had
the Implant out, you were immune to the signal... Why did you come
back, Jake?" Rorke said, and to Jake's surprise, he wasn't
angry... he was heartbroken. "You were as safe as anyone in this
town could be. Why did you come in here?"
Jake met his gaze fiercely.
"I think everyone is allowed to do something really stupid to
try and help their family." He said coldly. "Now you: Why
are you helping them?!"
Father Rorke looked sick to
his stomach. "Jake, when Grady first told me about them, I
didn't believe him. Then he introduced me to one of them and... Jake,
I was overjoyed."
"Overjoyed?" Jake
repeated in disbelief.
"Of course! The notion
that we're not alone? Every Sunday, I stand at my pulpit and I try to
teach this town that there's more to the universe than they see
around them, and that as creations, we have it within ourselves to
give glory to our Creator. The idea that there was another planet
full of people out there? Maybe more than one? The more varied and
amazing the universe, the greater the tribute to the designer."
Rorke looked down. "But I made a terrible mistake... Humans
don't often act in a very godly way. Why did I expect more of others
in the universe?"
Silence.
Rorke sat down, and Jake was
standing. It was not unlike the teenager was taking confession from
the town clergyman.
Rorke looked up, and the
tortured need for Jake to understand was obvious in his eyes.
"Jake... I wanted to see more of them! I wanted to see more of
the stars! I wanted... I wanted to tell the world that they really
aren't alone. I wanted to tell them that they were part of a bigger
community. I wanted to tell them that there was more to the universe
than the petty, stupid trivia that they get obsessed with down here!"
The fervor was strong and desperate. The Preacher had thought that
being part of a bigger universe might save them from themselves.
Jake felt his eyes sting.
Despite himself, he was feeling nothing but pity for the elder man.
Rorke looked up at him, and
Jake knew he was understanding the point of the moment too. "This
is my confession, Jake. I wanted to be part of this... and I didn't
even know what it was. I wanted to go with them. I begged them to let
me go with them on their ship. They told me that I was of more use,
that I could play a greater part here, among the congregation that I
have spent my life with." He looked at Jake beseechingly. "I
have spent my life in the service of higher powers, Jake. I was
willing to be led." He bowed his head in personal torment. "But
they're gone. The whole town. And I helped make it happen. This is my
confession. I am a servant of evil ones. Ones that have seduced even
your own brother away from you and your family. I helped them do it."
He met Jake's eyes, one last time. "I'm sorry, Jake. I'm so
sorry. I wish I could make all this stop."
"Then stop." Jake
said simply.
"It won't make any
difference."
"It will to you."
Jake offered.
"No. It won't."
Father Rorke touched his temple with one hand, the meaning instantly
clear. "I told you. I begged to go with them. I have their mark
on me now. It's inside me."
Jake reached into his
waistband and pulled out the Gizmo. "It doesn't have to be."
He held it up to the clergyman's face, resisting the impulse to cross
him with it. "But there is something I want in return."
Rorke looked up, sensing the
chance for forgiveness. "Name it."
"First, information."
Jake asked. "You said I was immune to the Signal. What did that
mean?"
Rorke pointed upward. "You
know that the Alien Devices can control people with the Implants. But
they have the entire town under their spell now. There's a signal
being transmitted."
"Then why do the
Gizmo's still work if there's a signal over the whole town?"
Jake demanded.
"Proximity, I guess."
Rorke shrugged. "I didn't build the thing, but you tell me: How
close do you have to be for it to work?"
"No idea." Jake
said immediately. "Now... How do I get onto the Ship?"
Royce gulped. "You want
to go aboard?"
"I do."
"The... They only let
me aboard once. When they come in the front door, they're under
control, so I only have to let them into the building and check the
manifest."
"Census." Jake
corrected absently.
"Same thing. After
that, they just march up the stairs. One of the windows towards the
base of the steeple has been knocked out, so that everyone can just
step out onto the roof. They go aboard the Ship, and I think they go
straight into cages."
Jake's eyes flashed. "Does
anyone escort them up after they leave you?"
"Not until the Ship. I
don't think they care that much about..."
"About their
livestock?" Jake growled through grit teeth.
Rorke couldn't meet his
eyes.
Jake brandished the Gizmo.
"They may notice your Implant going off the air. They may come
looking for you. So I'll come by on my way out to get rid of it for
you."
Rorke lurched to his feet.
"No. I'll go with you."
Jake glared. "Can you
think of a terribly compelling reason why I should be willing to have
you at my back?"
Rorke bit his lip, and his
eyes flicked to the Gizmo. Jake swiftly understood. "Oh."
The young man scorned. "You want to come with me, because you
think that the odds of me living long enough to come back for you are
close to zip."
Rorke nodded. "Frankly,
yes. I'm sorry, that's not... go. They will be wondering at the
delay. Go with the next group. Don't draw attention. They'll do a
headcount, but they won't check for Implants, because they know on
sight if someone is obeying their signal. They won't recognize you."
Rorke smiled with a sarcastic bitter laugh. "I don't think they
can tell us apart, really."
"Why are they using us
for so much?"
Rorke blinked. "What?"
"I mean, why do they
need humans to do anything at all? They took the plane, they've taken
the entire town over the years... why do they need us to handle the
leg-work?"
Rorke looked over his
shoulder again, as though discussing the forbidden topic was somehow
a million times worse than just having this conversation at all.
"There are only eight of them."
Jake blinked. "What?"
"The Ship. It doesn't
have a big crew, there are only eight of them... and I think that
most of them don't enjoy doing the 'leg-work'."
Jake growled, low in his
throat. "Except for the ones who enjoy a night of hunting."
Rorke put his face into his
hands. "Oh Father God, forgive me; what have I done?"
Jake sighed. "I'll be
back."
"I'll be here. W-what
are you going to do?" Rorke demanded fearfully.
"See it through."
Jake said without emotion.
Rorke took that in with a
nod. "Good luck."
~oo00oo~
The
group started walking again. Jake slipped out of the side room and
joined them. It took him a few seconds to realize that the girl who
had walked in next to him was gone. He resisted the temptation to
look around for her, restraining himself to the slow, methodical
shuffle. The two lines were suddenly uneven, with him at the back of
the lines alone.
As the group reached the end
of the hallway and began climbing the staircase, Jake fought to
remain still as two Greys scaled down the walls of the steeple. The
staircase went up around the wall in a spiral, and the Greys were
climbing down, completely ignoring the march of their victims. They
were both chattering eagerly with each other, their whistles and
clicks sounding angry. Jake forced himself not to shudder as their
malevolent gaze swept over him.
They went straight past as
the humans climbed.
What are they worried
about? Jake
thought to himself. Are
they wondering where the girl who's supposed
to be next to me went?
They made it to the third
level. Out the staircase window was the roof, and Jake could see the
windows were wide open. Large enough for people to climb out easily,
and on the roof was the Spaceship.
And all that stood in his
way, was Jess.
She was on the staircase
landing, one turn short of the window. Somewhere since seeing him
last, she had changed clothes, and combed her hair back. She looked
lovely. She looked dangerous. She looked at Jake as the sleepwalkers
shuffled past.
She had a new Gizmo, which
was a dark red color, and she waved everyone past her, making them
pause on the steps above, before they reached the window. The
position was perfect. It made it impossible for Jake to push past the
motionless people to get to the roof. Jake didn't bother pretending
that he was sleepwalking.
Jess and Jake regarded each
other a moment on the landing in the turn in the staircase. A narrow
spot, wall on one side, three level drop on the other.
"I told them you'd come
anyway." Jess said softly. "They didn't believe me. They
said not even a human would be stupid enough to try anything now, but
I knew." Jess looked disgusted. "I had a feeling you
wouldn't be smart about this."
Jake looked equally
disgusted. "Jess, did you actually stop by your house to change
into a new outfit on your way here?"
Jess shrugged. "The
alternative is I look like a war refugee."
"Like me?" Jake
said with scorn. "You know the one consolation I have in all
this? Everyone warned me about you. Marie, Zack, my dad, even Pierce.
Everyone who saw us together warned me that you weren't a good pick."
"I know." Jess
said quietly. "And I know that you defended me against all of
them. I loved you for that." Jess looked miserable, but decided.
"All I have to do is scream, Jake. All I have to do is call for
help."
"Then why haven't you?"
He challenged.
Jess said nothing.
"Can't do it, can you?"
He almost dared her, with a confidence he didn't feel. "You know
what you did was wrong, and you can't follow through." He shook
his head. "Even when you've made up your mind, you can't make up
your mind. God, how did I never see this before?"
"Don't have too much
faith in your charm
here, Jake." She growled scornfully. "I know that Zack is
dead, and I know it's because I fired off that damned flare gun. You
think I'm going to do that, and walk away with nothing?" Jess
sighed, and reached into her waistband, pulling out the gun she had
gotten from Mrs Blanchard's house. She raised it smoothly and pointed
at him. "I'm in too deep to walk away now."
Jake looked hard at her. He
backed away a little, and found he had nowhere to go when he hit the
handrail behind him. The two of them circled a moment, until Jake had
the staircase going up at his back. The staircase behind him was
still crowded with people, none of them moving, none of them aware of
the drama unfolding. "Are you going to kill me, Jess?"
"What do you want from
me, Jake?" She demanded with tears rolling down her face. "I
can't let you screw this up, or my family is finished. You don't have
the tracker, just get out of here and save yourself before you take
me and my parents down with you!"
"Dammit, Jess: that was
the plan! To take your family, and mine, and Marie's, and Zack's; and
get them all out of here! That was the plan! That was OUR plan!"
He raged at her quietly. "What? You got a better offer? You have
what you wanted, so to hell with the rest of us, is that it?"
"You can't do it,
Jake." She said darkly. "I told them all about your plan
when I came on board. Your Gizmo doesn't work any more. They can turn
any of their devices off by remote, for exactly this reason. It
stopped working the minute you came in the front door."
Jake stared at the alien
thing in his hand. His fragile nothing plan had crumbled to ashes
outright. He felt his mind race for a moment... And then he relaxed
completely. After all the fear and all the doubts and all the
questions, his vague excuse for a plan had been eliminated... and he
was perfectly calm about it. The die had been cast. Everything that
he could do, or try to do had been tried, and all that was left was
to play it out. "Well then. That's it."
"Not necessarily. Just
run, Jake." She almost begged him. "Just go."
Jake lifted his chin. "No."
He said simply.
"I'm not kidding around
with you, Jake." Jess stepped closer, bringing the gun close
enough that Jake could smell the gun oil. "I don't want to kill
you." She said seriously. "But I will."
"I believe you."
He said softly.
"Walk away." She
said again, for the last time.
"No." Jake said
simply, his eyes never leaving hers.
Jess squeezed the trigger,
when she felt a sudden tap on her shoulder. She turned in surprise to
look and howled as her eyes were suddenly set on fire.
Marie sprayed half her can
of Mace square into Jess' eyes. The gun fell to the floor, forgotten
instantly. Jess was clawing at her eyes, shouting in agony, when
Marie struck, clapping one hand over Jess' mouth, and the other on
Jess' shoulder, shoving her hard into the wall.
Jess was trying not to
scream hysterically. Marie pulled a zip-lock bag out of her pocket.
Jake lunged forward to hold the thrashing blonde still as Marie
opened the bag and yanked out a cloth. Jake recognized the smell
immediately. Marie had produced a chloroform rag.
Jess was unconscious in
seconds, and both of them looked around for a place to stash her
unconscious body. "Smooth." Jake gasped, suddenly short of
breath after the tension of the standoff. "I didn't know you had
a can of Mace."
"An old memento from my
mom's days in Manhattan." Marie said with a savage grin. "The
knockout rag I got from following around your mom. I spend enough
time at the Clinic, I know where to find bottles of dangerous stuff."
"What do we do with
her?" Jake asked.
"Don't ask me, I ran
out of plan when I hit her with the chloroform." Marie shrugged.
"Sometimes you can over-plan these things."
"It's more than I had
when I came in here." Jake waved that off. "We can hide her
one level higher, near the bells. If they're using this staircase to
get to the roof, I doubt they'll go any higher than the window
level."
Marie snatched up Jess' new
Red Gizmo, and waved it at the two rows of people. In unison, they
started to climb the stairs again. Jake snatched up the gun and
grabbed Jess by the shoulders. Marie got her by the ankles and the
two of them almost ran up the stairs with their burden, adrenaline
making them quick. As they pushed their way past the waiting people,
they got a quick glance out the window. The rear of the Ship was
open. Intellectually, Jake knew that it was a cargo door, nothing
more malevolent than that. But it was impossible to shake the image
of it being a mouth, ready to snap them all up.
They hauled Jess up to the
next landing, out of sight by the angle of the stairs.
When they got to the upper
part of the clock-tower, they could see that something had happened
to it. The usual mechanism was there, clockworks and the enormous
cast iron bells... But something new had been added. Along the
interior of the tower were wires. They looked like ordinary cabling
and components, the kind of thing that were visible in most radio
towers... But laid out differently. It clearly wasn't normal, wasn't
meant to be there... But it didn't glow, or have gooey bits involved.
"If that's what their
tech looks like, no wonder we didn't notice." Jake commented.
"No time for
sightseeing." Marie said quickly, and unceremoniously dropped
Jess to the floor. Marie shook her arm a little and a roll of duct
tape slid out of her sleeve, down into her hand.
"Marie, you're
phenomenal." Jake said in a matter-of-fact tone as they taped up
the traitorous young woman, hand and foot.
"I figured I could pull
the same trick you did." Marie explained, looking over Jess' Red
Gizmo. "So I grabbed the girl at the back of the line and stuck
her in a closet. I figured I could catch up and you'd be smart enough
not to scream in delighted shock when you saw my adorable face
again." She gave him a tight smirk. "I didn't expect you to
make a quick stop for confession." She grinned. "Let's
move, before someone on that Ship wonders what's keeping their latest
cargo."
The two of them hurried down
to rejoin the group. Marie keyed the new Gizmo and everyone started
walking. Jake and Marie fell into step behind them, matching their
speed as they stepped out on the roof of the Town Hall, leaving the
clocktower behind them on their way to the Ship.
"Last chance to back
out." Marie whispered.
From within the craft,
emerged a Grey, heading in their direction.
"Too late." Jake
whispered back.
~~/*\~~~~/*\~~~~/*\~~