Independence Day: Resurgence: The Official Movie Novelization (3 page)

That crazy drunk crop duster…

His final missile jammed in his jet’s own launch bracket, and he’d flown it straight up the aperture of the destroyer’s main weapon assembly. Pure guts.

At the time
Major
Adams had been attached to the Area 51 R&D wing, but he hadn’t known all of its secrets. What he
had
known was that new technology kept appearing, along with orders to integrate it into existing fighter jets and other military hardware. He’d heard the rumors, of course, knew that Area 51 held secrets to which his security clearance did not entitle him—but when he’d learned the full truth, he’d been astonished.

Area 51 had been doing alien research since 1947.

Incredible.

Once he’d recovered from the surprise, Adams had applied to join the accelerated alien research projects. He’d seen some combat when the survivors from the city destroyer came boiling out in a last murderous attack, but most of his career had been, and was, dedicated to turning the aliens’ technology against them. Against whatever else might be out there among the stars.

All enemies, foreign and domestic
, the oath said. After 1996, Adams had mentally added
extraterrestrial
.

Now he was one of the officers in charge. Using the alien materials, science, and especially the anti-gravity propulsion systems, humankind had reached out into the solar system. There were bases on the Moon, Mars, Rhea, and others were in the planning stages. Humanity had taken a weapons lesson from the aliens, as well.

Cannons based on the city destroyers’ main weapon were the next step in human defense. Dozens of them were lined up at one end of Area 51, in various stages of construction. Dozens of others ringed the Earth in geostationary orbits, linked to the command center here in Nevada. Still more were on the way from Earth to the space-based installations on other planets and moons. Before Adams retired, he wanted to be able to look at a map of the solar system and not find a hole through which an alien aggressor could get close to Earth—not without humanity knowing about it ahead of time and having the capacity to react.

That would be a legacy worth leaving.

Near the rows of cannons, next to the research complex, a large red cross painted on the roof marked out the hospital named for President Whitmore’s first lady, Marilyn, who had died during the War of ’96. Adams had met the president only once, and admired him as much as he admired any man on Earth. It was sad to hear about the mental decline Whitmore had experienced in recent years.

The president’s daughter, Patricia, would have been a good pilot, following in her father’s footsteps, but she’d left flight school to be closer to him, back in D.C. She’d landed on her feet, though, and was an assistant of some kind to the new president, Lanford.

Solid woman
, Adams thought.
Better than her predecessor, Bell.

The hospital in which Marilyn Whitmore had died was now a world-class research and medical facility. Here again, alien research had given humanity new insights. The invaders were so much farther along the biotech learning curve that even after twenty years, Adams knew the human race still had a long way to go to catch up. Even so, new advances were saving lives. Most of that research was centered here, because most of it was based on classified material and couldn’t be shared with other medical facilities. Maybe someday, Adams thought, but not quite yet.

The chopper hovered for a moment as the ground crew cleared away from its rotor wash, and General Adams wondered again what had lit a fire under the staff.

He would find out soon.

Dr. Milton Isaacs took a break from his rounds in the Marilyn Whitmore Hospital to check in on Brakish. There weren’t many patients in the hospital, since it was on the grounds of the alien research facility at Area 51, and outside of the occasional workplace accident or bout of the flu, the local population was quite healthy.

He entered the room carrying a plant he had ordered from an orchid vendor in California.

“Good morning, Brakish,” Isaacs said as he took the plant to the windowsill and placed it among the others already there. “I brought you a new one.” Most of them were also orchids. Brakish loved orchids. Occasionally Isaacs let himself succumb to magical thinking and imagined that reciting their scientific names would be the incantation that finally brought Brakish out of his coma.

“
Dactylorhiza maculata
,” he said as he approached Brakish’s bedside and combed his long gray hair. “The spotted orchid. When it fully blooms the lilac will take your breath away.” He paused as if listening, his eyes never leaving Brakish’s face. “I made you a gift. I think you’re gonna love it.

“No, I’m not going to tell you,” he added. “You’re just going to have to wait.”

He always made a point of pausing in his little monologues, giving Brakish a chance to respond, even though in nearly twenty years Brakish had not once made a sound. Seven thousand three hundred days. Well, with the leap years it was seven thousand, three hundred and five, but to Isaacs the round number was almost more of a milestone.

He had been at Brakish’s side, helping to extract the alien from its genetically engineered exoskeletal armor. They hadn’t known much about the aliens then, having only been able to study three of them over the years. Brakish had the idea to cut through the suit and attempt direct communication. The presence of President Whitmore, watching from the viewing room next to the surgery, had Brakish worked up into quite a state. He was always proud of his work, and this was his chance to show the president himself what the scientists at Area 51 were doing to justify their enormous black budget.

Then everything had gone wrong.

The alien’s telepathic attack came as a complete surprise. Physically, too, it had lashed out and instantly killed or wounded everyone in the room—Isaacs included. He still had the scars from the lash of its tentacles, but for Brakish the experience was far worse. The alien had forced its way into his mind, used him as a puppet to speak to the president and make clear that there would be no peace, no coexistence. Only war, until one side or the other was destroyed.

Isaacs remembered starting to regain consciousness just as the soldiers in the viewing area shot the alien through the surgery’s windows, breaking the telepathic hold it had on Brakish. A few days later, when Isaacs was sufficiently recovered to visit Brakish, the man was in a coma.

They’d thought it would only last a few days, until his brain recovered from the trauma, but those days had lengthened into weeks, and then years. Over time Isaacs had been absorbed into the new research avenues. No matter what else occupied his working hours, however, Isaacs always kept his eye out for new orchids, and he made sure to visit Brakish at least once a day. On working days, he stopped in twice, before and after his shift. In that way two full decades had disappeared into the past. Twenty years of Isaacs’ life had included tending his comatose lover, and nursing the fragile seed of hope that one day he would awaken.

They hadn’t been open then—in 1996 it was a different time, and fraternization among staff was frowned upon no matter what gender the fraternizers might be. To be gay at Area 51 was to be very discreet. Over the twenty years since, the stigma of his sexuality had gradually disappeared, until he could openly mourn and care for Brakish. Isaacs had never been tempted away. Brakish was the love of his life. He didn’t want anyone else.

Some day, he believed, Brakish would wake up. He would look around and see the orchids lining his windowsill, and he would know Isaacs had been there for him the entire time.

That was love. Simply that. Being there for someone else no matter how difficult it became.

“Dr. Isaacs report to the ICU,” a nurse’s voice said over the hospital speaker. Isaacs sighed. It was time to get back to work.

“I’ll be back,” he said, and he patted Brakish’s hand before leaving to answer the call.

Love
, he thought.
It drives us to do things we never thought were possible. Like having conversations with a man who has been in a coma for nearly twenty years.
He believed that somewhere deep in his mind, Brakish heard him. That seed of hope lay within both of them, perhaps, ready to germinate and then grow into a new life together.

Twenty years wasn’t too long to wait. Someday Brakish would wake up. He would reappear, his eyes still alight with the joy of discovery, his enthusiasm still infectious even when other people didn’t know what he was talking about, his good humor still invulnerable to the attacks of pessimists and naysayers. Isaacs had never met anyone like him, and never would again.

Tomorrow
, he thought.
Maybe it’ll be tomorrow.
He said it to himself every time he was walking out of Brakish’s room.

* * *

Isaacs left the room.

He didn’t see Brakish Okun’s fingers twitch on the crisp white sheets of the hospital bed.

A black SUV, standard base transport, was waiting for General Adams when he got out of the helicopter.

He returned the driver’s salute and climbed in the back, watching the base go by until the SUV pulled up at the entrance to one of Area 51’s central research buildings. Waiting outside the entrance was Lieutenant Jim Ritter, one of Adams’s handpicked subordinates in the alien technology research project.

Ritter snapped to attention and saluted.

“Sir,” he began.

Adams cut him off. “This better be good. My wife and I were enjoying a very nice morning at a very expensive bed and breakfast.”

“I’m sorry,” the lieutenant said, “but I thought you should see this.”

Despite his irritation, Adams was intrigued. The building housed the prison wing of the research complex—and it wasn’t a prison for human beings.

During the course of years fighting against surviving aliens, hundreds had been captured and sent to New Mexico. The most famous capture, of course, was Captain Steven Hiller’s. He had dragged a parachute-wrapped prisoner across miles of desert while the initial invasion fleet was still destroying the great cities of the world. That event had passed into legend, as had Captain Hiller himself.

Soldiers and pilots all over the world had also captured aliens during the course of the battles following President Whitmore’s heroic last attack. Those aliens had been gathered here at Area 51—most of them, anyway. General Adams suspected that other countries also maintained their own versions of the facility. Information wasn’t always shared. Even faced with the threat of collective death from the stars, humans banded together into nations and guarded their secrets jealously.

Many of the captured aliens had died for reasons poorly understood by the scientists assigned to study them. Efforts at interrogation had failed almost completely—the alien consciousness was so different from the human mind that establishing common ground for communication was difficult, even before the interrogators dealt with the visceral hatred the aliens felt for humanity.

In many ways, Adams reflected, they knew as little now about what motivated the aliens as they had in 1996, when Hiller’s captured monster had gone berserk in the medical suite, killing or injuring a number of important scientific personnel. It then used one of them as a mouthpiece, communicating from the other side of a viewing window.

What was the man’s name?
He tried to remember.

President Whitmore had asked the creature what the invaders wanted humanity to do, and the alien had answered simply.

Die
.

They had shot it, ending the short conversation.

Since then, not a single one of the aliens had uttered another word. Neither, for that matter, had the scientist—Okun, that was his name. Like him, most of the imprisoned aliens had spent the intervening two decades in what appeared to be a catatonic state. They performed basic biological functions, but so rarely that for long periods of time they appeared dead, although instruments monitoring their vital signs noted continued breathing and circulation.

This entire building had been designed to house the aliens and keep them alive so they could be studied. What little
was
known—or could be inferred—about their preferred habitat had been incorporated into the design. Not to keep them comfortable, but to extend their lives and therefore the opportunity to study them.

They seemed able to adapt to the terrestrial atmosphere and temperatures. As a result, some scientific personnel theorized that Earth-like conditions were necessary for advanced life forms to exist anywhere in the universe. Adams didn’t think the sample size was all that convincing.

Right then it didn’t matter. What mattered was that one of his junior officers had encountered something of such importance that it warranted dragging Adams out of a very enjoyable weekend retreat. He typically trusted Ritter’s judgment, but as he had said when he got out of the car…

This had better be good.

Ritter led Adams inside, through the outer lobby and office areas. Just past those was a central monitoring station. Rows of screens displayed the feeds from various locations within the prison complex itself, including every cell. Several technicians were gathered around one of the monitors as Adams and Ritter approached. One of them saw the general and motioned the others out of the way so he could see what they were looking at.

On the monitor, an alien thrashed back and forth in its cell, hammering itself into the walls, over and over. The walls were slick with its body fluids, but if it was causing itself harm, that didn’t appear to be deterring it.

“It started a couple of hours ago,” Lieutenant Ritter said.

The techs cycled through other video feeds. Everywhere the same frenzied scene played out. Aliens smashed against the walls, beat at them with their tentacles, pounded against the bulletproof glass and left smears of their secretions.

After a few moments General Adams walked over to a bay window that overlooked the enormous prison block. He was old enough that he preferred seeing things with his own eyes, rather than through the lens of a camera. The cell block was immense, and along its entire length the same chaotic scene prevailed. The aliens had apparently gone insane.