Independence Day: Resurgence: The Official Movie Novelization (22 page)

* * *

Isaacs went looking for Okun, to give him the terrible news about the reappearance of the aliens—although he had a sense that Brakish’s recovery might be related to it. The contact he’d experienced clearly still affected him, and no one knew what the long-term consequences might be.

He turned and stepped into Brakish’s room.

“Oh no,” he said. Brakish was gone. The walls—every inch of them—were covered in scrawled alien symbols.

Isaacs spun and ran out of the room.

If Brakish was at all in possession of his faculties, there was only one place he would be going. His lab. And if he was again under control of the aliens, he would be headed the same direction, because the alien-research lab was attached to the prison wing. Isaacs had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he had to stay focused on the one good thing.

Brakish was back. Nothing was going to take him away again.

* * *

General Adams saluted as Patricia, her father, and Agent Travis disembarked from the C-130 in the middle of a dust storm.

“Glad to have you back, Mr. President,” Adams said. “It’s been far too long.” Despite his words, his expression spoke volumes as he stared at the haunted, unkempt man who stood before him. When last they’d faced such a situation, a younger Thomas Whitmore had been the strong leader during the War of ’96.

“Is David here?” Whitmore asked.

“Not yet. Morrison’s tug is ten minutes out.”

“As soon as they land have them meet us at the prison,” Whitmore said. To Patricia he sounded more focused than he had in years. “We need to interrogate one.”

That worried her. What exactly did he have planned? The last contact he’d had with an alien had scarred him for two decades, and he’d never recovered. What would happen if it occurred again?

* * *

Legacy Squadron made reentry just east of the alien ship and shot across the North Atlantic until they reached the New England coast. Around them, the massive landing petals unfolded and drove themselves deep into the Earth’s crust.

“All aircraft within the sound of my voice,” General Adams said over the open frequency. “We’ve lost most of Asia and Europe, and the devastation in our capital is beyond imagination.”

“My mom is in D.C.,” Dylan said.

Adams hadn’t heard him. “The rally point for all functioning military forces is Area 51,” he went on—then interference cut the signal.

“Rain, take the lead,” Dylan said. “I’ll meet you there.”

The rest of the squadron thundered on west as Dylan’s fighter banked to the south. He’d already lost his father, and then his stepfather. He wasn’t going to lose his mother, too.

* * *

They heard the aliens before they could see the prison cells. The shrieks and screeching sounded all the way down the hall, and grew in intensity as they got closer.

God
, Patricia thought.
What could make them do that?

It had to be the ship. Somehow, they had to know.

When they reached the monitor station at the entrance to the prison wing, the techs were all staring at their screens, unsure what to do. Patricia was shocked to see Brakish Okun there, too, awake after twenty years. He was wearing nothing but a johnny gown, and he’d forgotten to tie the back.

“Why are they screaming?” she asked, trying to stay focused on what was important.

“They’re not screaming,” Okun said, his eyes alight with discovery. He seemed completely himself again, and entirely unaware that he wasn’t quite decent.

“They’re celebrating.”

Jasmine got to the roof with the new mother and her baby—
who is doing just fine, thank you very much
—just in time to see the last rescue helicopter taking off.

They stared at it receding into the distance, and then they saw one of the vast ship’s landing feet plunging down toward the ground. When it punched into the earth, it was as if an earthquake had struck the hospital. A wave of debris crashed against the lower floors and Jasmine was knocked flat. She glanced over at the mother and baby, and saw that they were all right. The mother was exhausted, of course, but she was still running on the adrenaline of the delivery—and panic.

And if she was panicked, she had good reason.

Jasmine scanned the damage to the hospital, and realized there was no way for them to get off the roof. That was it. She had tried, but at long last she was losing hope. She didn’t know whether Dylan was dead or alive, and she didn’t think she was going to live much longer, once the alien ship decided it was time to start destroying cities again.

She caught the young mother’s eye, and saw her silently pleading for Jasmine to say something—
anything
that would give her a reason to believe. She had just given birth, and she was desperate to know that her baby wasn’t going to die.

But Jasmine couldn’t do it. There was nothing she could say.

* * *

Dylan’s fighter screamed over the hospital, where he saw his mother with another woman—carrying a baby?

All right
, he thought. This was going to be tricky. He banked over to the White House, where evac choppers were loading up and taking off. As one of the choppers lifted off, Dylan hailed him on an emergency frequency.

“I have bodies on the hospital roof that need immediate evac!”

“Negative,” the pilot answered. “We were given orders to—”

“I don’t give a shit about your orders!” Dylan brought the fighter around in a tight turn. “Pick up those civilians, or I’ll shoot you down myself!”

* * *

As the alien ship’s landing leg settled deeper into the ground, it pushed more debris into the bottom floors of the hospital. The entire building started to buckle and the roof tilted. Jasmine and the young mother crouched down and held on for dear life.

“We’re gonna die, aren’t we?” the young woman said.

“Look at me,” Jasmine said. The woman did. “We’re not gonna die. Do you hear me? We’re
not gonna die
.”

A jet screamed overhead, and she winced. Was an attack coming? The hospital wouldn’t survive it, and neither would they.

Following the jet came a Marine helicopter. It swung low, and a Marine leaned out of the open fuselage door, extending his hand.

“Let’s go!” Jasmine shouted over the rotor wash. She helped the woman and her baby safely into the chopper. Then something occurred to her. Was that the same jet that had just flown over a minute ago? She looked up, and recognized the decals on its nose.

Dylan.
Jasmine smiled in joy and relief. She smiled up at him, and was sure that he had seen her. The Marine got the mother and baby settled and reached back for Jasmine.

He missed her hand by inches.

The entire hospital complex collapsed.

* * *

“Noooooo!” Dylan screamed into his mic as the debris wave plowed the hospital under, and his mother was lost in the churning rubble. He brought the fighter around in a screaming turn. “No, no, no…”

The entire complex was an unrecognizable mass of debris. Fires were already burning inside it. The Marine chopper was hailing him, telling him they had all survivors on board and were withdrawing to Andrews to transfer them. Dylan didn’t answer.

He made one more pass over the wreckage, and then he turned the fighter west. As he completed the turn, he took a good long look at the alien ship, and swore to himself he would see the aliens dead. He had tried to save his mother, and couldn’t. But he would avenge her.

It was less than a minute later when the landing petal from the alien ship extended hooks to brace the ship’s incalculable weight, and one of them obliterated the White House and everyone still in it.

* * *

Patricia stared at the alien prisoners shown on the monitors. General Adams stood with her, Agent Travis and Okun just behind them. All were mesmerized by the creatures.

“Patricia, our chamber contains their telepathy,” Adams explained, seeking to reassure her. “Limiting their effect on our minds.”

Yet what her father wanted to do would place him on the other side of those screens.

“Sir, you can’t send someone in there with one of those things,” she said. Whitmore wanted to interrogate one of them, but how could that be done without risking permanent damage, or worse. How dangerous would they be when they were so agitated?

“She’s right,” Lieutenant Ritter said. “Their biometrics are off the charts.”

“So we double the sedative gas,” Adams proposed. “We’re not going to sit around here and watch the world go down in flames.”

Suddenly an alarm went off on the monitor console. Instantly a tech scanned the readouts, hitting a button that stopped the strident sound.

“Sir,” he said, sounding as if he couldn’t believe his own words, “one of the prison cells is docking with the chamber.”

Patricia looked around, and a pang of fear struck her.

“Where’s my dad?”

“He went in there,” Okun said. He pointed at an open doorway. It led into an isolation chamber where aliens could be brought individually for examination. It could be sealed on both sides.

Led by Patricia, they rushed into the chamber, and discovered that Whitmore had already locked himself inside its docking compartment. He was standing at a control panel, and had brought one of the modular cells over to lock onto the other side. If he opened the mating doorway, he would be alone in there with one of the aliens.

Patricia banged at the thick glass as General Adams demanded answers from the staff.

“Who the hell let him in there?”

“Dad!” Patricia shouted through the glass. “It’s too dangerous!”

He looked at her, fully present and committed.

“It’s the only way we stand a chance.”

She turned to Adams. “We need to get him out of there!”

Adams in turn looked to Ritter, who was working at the console that controlled the isolation chamber’s remote arm and locking mechanisms.

“He overrode the system,” Ritter said.

Agent Travis stood next to Patricia. “Sir,” he said loudly, “please unlock the door.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Whitmore said. “Just get as many answers as you can.” There was a flash of the old Tom Whitmore there as he hit a button, triggering the gas system. The thick cloud of sedative gas flooded the room, obscuring their vision, and from the far side Patricia heard the hiss of the cell door opening.

Then there was a commotion behind her. More people entered, and when she looked over she saw David Levinson, followed by three individuals she didn’t recognize.

“Whitmore locked himself in there,” Adams said.

“Oh no, Tom…” David stood gazing at the window. Patricia knew what would come next. They’d seen it before. Okun had experienced it himself.

At first there was nothing but haze, hanging there for a long, tense moment. Then Whitmore slammed forward into the glass, an alien tentacle wrapped around his neck.

Oh God
, Patricia thought.
This will kill him.

David stepped forward. He was the only one of them with enough presence of mind to try to salvage something from Whitmore’s sacrifice.

“Can you hear us?” he said.

“Sheeeee has arriiiived. Sheeeee has arriiiiived,” the alien said through Whitmore. Its chokehold on him reduced his voice to a strained rasp.

“Who is ‘she’?” David asked, keeping his voice calm.

“Sheeeeeeeee is aaaaaallllll.”

“What does ‘she’ want?” Adams said, perhaps unwittingly echoing what Whitmore himself had asked of an alien twenty years before, when it spoke through Dr. Okun.

“Yoourrrr plannnet,” the alien said. “Feeeed and growww. Feeeed and growww.”

Whitmore started to choke and shiver as the alien kept repeating its message. His eyes were wide and staring.

“That’s enough!” Patricia said. They had to do something.

Suddenly, from the back of the room, Okun shouted out. “It’s killing him!”

“Get him out of there!” Adams bellowed.

Agent Travis grabbed an alien blaster from one of the prison techs. “Move!” he commanded, and as Whitmore fell out of sight, he opened fire on the glass. The other guards joined in, and their combined fire shattered the barrier, but instead of hiding, the alien came after them. In the blink of an eye it was through the window and into the room, snatching a blaster from one of the techs and spraying fire all around. Everyone dove for cover.

Except Dikembe.

In one smooth series of motions, he leaned out of its firing line, unsheathed his machetes, and severed its tentacles with expert strokes. Then, before it could react, he pivoted and stabbed both blades into its back. The alien shrieked, collapsing and dropping the blaster. Its biomechanical suit split open and the real alien inside slithered out, flailing after the dropped blaster. Dikembe stepped forward and put one of the machetes through its skull…

Just as Jake Morrison walked in.

Patricia rushed to her father’s side. He was unconscious, with livid welts on his neck from the tentacle’s grip.

“Get a medical team!” she shouted. Then she bent over him. “Dad. Wake up, Dad! Please wake up!”

David stood a little to the side. “Bravest man I’ve ever seen,” he said quietly.

Patricia saw Jake, and his presence enabled her to calm down. He came over to kneel beside her while they waited for the medical team.

Dikembe began cleaning his machetes. Floyd Rosenberg sidled up to him.

“That was intense,” the accountant said quietly. “One more notch, huh?”

* * *

Samantha Blackwell guided her mom’s station wagon carefully through the flooded streets of Austin, Texas. She didn’t know exactly what had happened, but she had her brothers, Bobby and Felix, and her little sister, Daisy, in the car, and they were going inland.

Some kind of tidal wave had struck, but on the radio she’d heard people talking about aliens, too. “From what we can tell,” a radio announcer said, “the entire east coast of the United States is gone. What took the aliens two days to destroy last time was gone in two minutes…”

She passed an oil tanker that had crushed a line of houses along the street. Ahead there was a drilling platform that must have been torn loose out in the Gulf and dumped here. Samantha was kind of in shock, but she was doing her best. It would have been a lot easier if Daisy wasn’t wailing and Ginger wasn’t barking so much in the back seat.