Oblivion (21 page)

When the international contingent signed off, Cross reached for one more donut hole to tide him to lunch.

“I didn’t adjourn us, Dr. Cross,” Maddox said, and he felt like a high school student who got caught cutting class.

He took his donut hole and leaned back. “Just getting more food,” he said, holding it up to her as evidence. He would have done the same thing in high school.

“Well, when you’re done, you can tell us what NanTech has discovered on those harvesters,” she said.

Britt gasped.

Thank you, Dr. Archer,
Cross thought, but didn’t say. If Maddox hadn’t known before, she definitely did now.

A small smile played at Maddox’s lips. “Don’t be coy, Dr. Cross. I happen to know that you took some of those alien nanomachines to NanTech. If I had been thinking, I might have instructed you to do that. So, what has the team found?” “Not much,” Cross said. “Just the fact that the harvesters don’t move on their own, that they do seem to shut off when they’re full, and they can be programmed to eat anything ” “Anything?”

“Right now they’re designed to eat organic material. The NanTech team believes they can absorb minerals as well, or saline from the ocean. Anything the tenth planet needs, in other words.”

Maddox didn’t look surprised. Apparently her spies had told her that as well. But the others did.

“My God,” Yolanda Hayes said. “You mean they could destroy the very Earth itself?”

“If they wanted to,” Cross said. “It would take a lot of nanoharvesters.”

He turned to Maddox. He wasn’t military and he wasn’t her underling. He didn’t appreciate being ambushed like that, and he was going to make it as plain as he could without direct confrontation.

“What about your people? I’ve heard nothing since I brought the harvesters back from California. What have your researchers found?”

“About the same thing yours have,” Maddox said. Then she slapped her hands on the table. “I suspect we all have better things to do than finish the last of the donut holes.
Now
the meeting is dismissed. Oh, and Dr. Cross?”

Why did he have the feeling he wasn’t going to like this request either?

“Make certain you have a report on NanTech’s work next time we meet.”

“It would be easier if they had access to the military’s work,” Cross said.

“I doubt that,” Maddox said.

Cross let out an exasperated breath. It was Shane who came to his rescue.

“General Maddox,” Shane said. “Remember the discussion we had about sharing information? It’s critical in the sciences.”

She nodded curtly. “I’ll take that under advisement.” And then she stood. “Thank you all for coming,” she said, and left. “Dammit,” Britt said. “Just when I was starting to like her.” “That wasn’t so bad,” Hayes said. “If you’d been military, Dr. Cross, you’d have received a strict dressing-down for taking those harvesters to private industry.”

“It feels like I did get a dressing-down,” Cross said.

“I suspect that General Maddox wasn’t even trying to upset you, Leo,” Shane said. “She’s got bigger balls than most of the guys on the Joint Chiefs. She could have humiliated you with a single sentence. Trust me, I’ve seen it.”

Cross shook his head. “It’s not something I want to see.” “Well, your dressing-down is good news actually,” Killius said.

“Why’s that?” Bntt asked.

Killius sipped the last of her coffee and tossed the paper cup into the wastebasket near the door. “I’d been getting the sense from the general that she wasn’t sure we could win this battle against the aliens.”

“Yeah,” Britt said. “Ever since that dinner.”

“Dinner?” Shane asked.

Cross shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said softly.

“Exactly,” Killius said. “That dinner creeped me out, too. It kinda felt like the opening round of the party at the end of the world.”

“Oh,” Shane said.

“But if the military doesn’t want private industry to get its filthy paws on those nanoharvesters, then that’s a good sign,” Killius said.

The logic was too circuitous for Cross. “How’s that?”

Killius looked at Cross as if he were dense. “It means they think we’re going to survive this, and after it’s all over, the private industry will exploit things that the government feels are dangerous in the wrong hands. The government wants to control this technology. And I’m convinced, after that little performance, that the only people working on those nanoharvesters are Americans.”

“Je-zus,” Hayes said.

“That’s just plain wrong,” Cross said. “If we fail in the air, we have to be able to defeat those aliens on the ground. And the nanoharvesters are the key to that. We should be making it a top priority in all this research. I’m half tempted to ship information off to labs all over the world.”

“Do that,” Shane said, “and you will get a real dressing-down. Don’t worry about it for now.”

“It seems you were hiding information as well,” Hayes said.

“No, I was just pissed that we were going to be out of the loop.” Then he paused, a bit confused. “You know, it was Maddox who told me we were going to be. Why would she do this now?”

“Maybe because the orders didn’t originate with her,” Killius said. “And maybe she doesn’t agree with them.”

Shane made a dismissing sound. “She’s too by the book for that.”

“No,” Britt said. “Jesse’s right. Maddox is by the book, but she’s a human being, too. And she’s scared. That’s what we got from that dinner, just how scared she is. Maybe she was hedging her bet without the government’s approval.”

“Then your sign isn’t as good,” Shane said to Killius. “Maybe we’ve come up against good old-fashioned stupidity.”

Killius shook her head. “Nope. I hold to my opinion. The fact that they’re hiding information like this means someone thinks we can win this thing. And if that’s the case, that means someone above us is optimistic. I see that as good news.”

“If that’s what you need,” Shane said. “But I’ve been in this too long. I have the hunch it’s just a case of business as usual.” “We haven’t been doing business as usual on anything else,” Cross said, “even to the extent of sharing information about military equipment. I can’t believe we’d do it here. I vote with Jesse. I see something good in all of this.”

Shane’s eyes twinkled. “Well, if far-seeing Dr. Cross believes that we’ll survive, that’s good enough for me.”

Cross grinned. “Sometimes, Shane, I wonder how you made it this far in this business.”

“Usually,” Shane said, “I keep my mouth shut and my head low. I have no idea what was wrong with me today.”

“Too many donut holes,” Britt said, grabbing the last one. “And me, I’ve got to get to work.”

The others agreed, and followed Britt out of the room. Cross lingered for a moment and stared at the now-blank screen. Optimism. Hope. No one was using those words. Maybe Conrad was right. Maybe the fear came from the sudden, new knowledge that not only were humans not alone in the universe, but that the new race was so superior it’d been kicking our ass for generations.

When you got down to the survival level, people became completely unpredictable.

Even he had. He hadn’t said a word about Portia’s idea to create new nanomachines, machines that would attack the nanoharvesters. Because he didn’t believe in the plan? Or because he was protecting Portia? Or because he wanted to hide information from Maddox?

He liked to think it was none of the above. If he were rationalizing, he would say it was because he hadn’t decided it was worth pursuing.

But somewhere, in that long and tense meeting, he had decided. He was going to tell Portia to go ahead with the new plan. If he could trust Maddox—and he wasn’t sure he could— then the military was working on the same path as NanTech. If that was the case, then Portia was free to work on the new nanomachines.

He wished he could find out for certain, but he would lose too much time trying to crack the military’s secrecy policies.

Survival took risks. Calculated risks, but risks to be sure. Portia wanted to deal with human technology. She felt more comfortable with it. And he knew that a scientist working in a realm she felt comfortable in made more progress than a scientist who worked in an unfamiliar place.

“You coming, Leo?” Britt asked from the door.

“Yeah,” he said. He had a lot to do. And the first thing on his list was contacting Portia Groopman.

May 25, 2018
5:47 a.m. Central Daylight Time

142 Days Until Second Harvest

Vivian Hartlein leaned against a tree three blocks off Union Street in Memphis, watching. The morning air still had a damp chill, but she knew the summer heat would fall, thick and heavy, by noon. She hoped to be on her way north in that little truck she’d had Jake buy her. Forty-year-old Ford— rebuilt, of course—but not with none of them electronic parts. No tracers, no nothing. Simple, old-fashioned combustion engine, just like God intended.

But she couldn’t leave yet, not without knowing that her plan was started right.

From this morning on there’d be no turning back.

This morning the government would start paying for the deaths of her family. And for all the other millions of people it had killed. And this time they wouldn’t be able to blame it on no aliens.

The street in front of her was tree lined and landscaped. A full two blocks away stood the Internal Revenue Service. It was in a four-story older building, made of granite, looking gray and solid and mean.

She studied the building one last time, taking in all the pictures of what it looked like. She wanted to remember every detail. The tall windows, the columns, the stairs leading in, the stone foyer beyond.

She’d never been in the building. She never paid no taxes, and Dale didn’t neither. They got by. Government didn’t even seem to notice they wasn’t in the system. That was because they made sure they was as outside it as possible: no ID, no bank accounts, no active social security number. No way she’d give money to a corrupt and evil government. Especially now, now that they done killed her family.

Even as she was planning this, she never went inside. Two blocks away was as close as she had ever gotten. But she’d seen the plans, helped in guiding those who was going to help her do right. She had convinced them all.

Now she wanted to remember.

This morning was only the beginning.

She glanced at her watch as two cars, both sedans, moved down the street toward her. She pretended to be looking the other way as they passed.

There was less than two minutes left.

Another car pulled up in front of the IRS building and stopped. Even from two blocks away she could see a man in the passenger seat and a woman driving. Two kids was strapped in safety seats in the back. Vivian remembered when she’d driven her daughter around like that. And how she’d never gotten the chance to drive her grandbabies anywhere.

And she never would now. Thanks to the government and all their lies.

The man kissed the woman in the car lightly, said something to the children, then opened the door. That was as far as he got, half in, half out of the car, his head turned to look at his children.

The front of the IRS building blew outward directly at the car.

Every window in the building exploded as a massive black cloud covered everything.

Vivian stared, making sure she would remember.

Even two blocks away the concussion of the blast knocked Vivian to one knee.

The ground shook under her.

Windows smashed in the buildings near her, raining glass on the streets and sidewalks.

The rumbling, roaring sound smothered everything.

She never took her gaze off where the government building had been.

Slowly, she climbed to her feet. She’d expected a feeling of joy. Or maybe excitement.

But she felt nothing.

She stared down the street of destruction in front of her.

The IRS building was gone, covered in a cloud of rolling smoke. Car and building sirens was screaming from all directions.

The IRS employee’s car had been smashed into the wall of the building across the street and was burning. She couldn’t see the little family at all.

She thought about the children and felt nothing. She had cried all her tears for her babies. Now, everyone else would know what she’d been through.

War meant sacrifice. The Bible said an eye for an eye. A child for a child. Two grandchildren for her grandchildren. A daughter for her daughter. A father for Jake’s father.

With one more look at the building, she turned away. Around her, people were running toward the destruction. But she walked quickly in the other direction.

She’d planned other shots in this war, and she was going to make sure they were done right.

June 5, 2018
10:22 Universal Time

131 Days Until Second Harvest

The command chamber inside the warship was large and round, a perfect circle. Cicoi stood at the entrance, his upper tentacles rising in astonishment as they had every time he had entered this chamber.