Forging Zero (3 page)

The
stench of smoke still stung the insides of Joe’s nostrils.  In the weeks that
followed the start of the Draft, burning houses had cast the subdivision in a
putrid black haze.  Along the sidewalks, cars had smoldered, adding spent
gasoline and plastic fumes to the choking smog.  Constant gunfire had rattled
the glass in the windows.  Armed looters had followed behind the Congies,
taking stuff from the homes and bodies of people who had resisted the aliens’
collection efforts.

But now
all Joe cared about was food.  He hadn’t eaten in so long that his stomach was
a constant pain to him, keeping him awake.  They had water, piped in from the
walls in constant-supply tubes that looked a lot like the bottles on a gerbil
tank, but that was it.  Worse, the water tasted funny, almost like algae.  Joe
guessed it had been days since their capture, but like the other kids that the
aliens had kidnapped and herded in here like cattle, Joe had spent most of his
time sleeping.  It had been so quiet since their abductors had shoved them in
here that several times, Joe had wondered if they had been forgotten in their
prison to starve.

I’m
not supposed to be here.  It should have been Sam.

Joe
took a deep breath and released it angrily, then pushed himself to his feet. 
The living black walls gripped his damp palms like frozen metal.  Joe yanked
his hands away and rubbed his palms together to rid himself of the sensation. 

Everywhere,
little kids were watching him.  Joe tried to ignore them, but he was head and
shoulders taller than anyone else in the room and his size drew their anxious
gazes.

They
wanted his help.  He could see the fear and desperation in their eyes.  They
wanted him to do something, like their parents would have done something for
them, and for days Joe had resented them for it.  He hated their stares.  Their
need.  Who did they think he was?  What made them think he could help them?  He
wasn’t their
dad
.  He was just a kid, just like them, and they were
captured by
aliens
.  A
big
kid, but still just a
kid
.

I’m
not supposed to be here.

The
thought wrenched at Joe’s spirit, just as it had a thousand times already.  He
hated his brother.  It was Sam who was supposed to be on this ship, listening
to children whimper and smelling kiddie pee as they wet themselves.  It was Sam
who’d been strung out in a line of kids bound for the ship.  And it was Sam
who’d run away while Joe got caught.

His
mother’s words from the day of his capture still haunted him.

Go
to Hell, Joe.

The
agony of that moment was still raw in his chest, so raw it hurt to breathe. 
His mom had begged him. 
Begged
him not to go after Sam. 
“You’re all
I have left,”
she kept saying, through tears. 
“Please, Joe.  Please
don’t do this.  You can’t help Sam…”

And Joe
had turned his back to her and walked out the door.

Go
to Hell, Joe,
had been his mother’s last teary
words she shouted after him as she stood there, shaking, on the front porch,
watching him go. 
I hope you go to Hell.

She’d
gotten her wish.

Miserable,
he got up and stumbled over to one of the tiny holes spaced along the circular
edge of the room.  He pissed in it, then zipped up and looked out over the
ocean of children.  He saw one kid in fake cammies, the kind you could buy at
the PX to dress your kid up like a soldier.  It even had cute little rolled
sleeves, though they were flat and lifeless from mechanical pressing.  Nothing
like his father’s.

Stupid
kid.

Joe
tore his attention away from the boy, his eyes stinging.  He let his gaze
wander around the edges of the obsidian dome, looking once again for an exit, a
seam, a lock,
any
indication that they weren’t trapped here forever.

The
silky black surface of the room was flawless.  Two feet out of reach, a scarlet
globe protruded from the ceiling and cast the space in an eerie red haze, but
there were no doors, no windows, nothing but hundreds of little kids watching
him.

Joe’s
angry, frustrated scowl fell once again upon the little groups of children
huddled against the walls.  The boy who was brave enough to meet his gaze
flinched and looked at the floor between his legs.  Moments later, his thin
shoulders began quaking in tiny sobs.

In that
moment, Joe felt like he’d been slapped.  Watching the kids whimper and cringe
away from his angry look, he realized that they all just wanted someone to tell
them they’d be okay.  Just like Joe had wanted, back when his world was falling
apart.  When Dad disappeared, and nobody would go looking for him.  When he
found Dad’s friend Manny, slumped against a bent parking meter in a pool of
blood, Dad’s knife in his hands.  When they came for Sam.

Though
Joe’s nerves were screaming at him to curl up against the wall somewhere and
pretend they didn’t exist, he went over to the boy and squatted in front of
him.  The kid glanced up, the hope in his eyes so strong it was painful.

Swallowing
hard, Joe said, “How you doing?”

The kid
blurted, “Do you know when they’re gonna let us go home?”

Hearing
the innocent desperation in the kid’s voice, Joe felt a tiny part of him die. 
Nobody had told him.  Nobody had even bothered to even tell him. 

I
can’t help these kids,
Joe thought, in despair.
  What the hell did he say to them?  Who the hell was he, Joe Dobbs,
to tell them they were never going to see their families again?

But he
had to tell him
something.
  Looking into his eyes, Joe knew he couldn’t
just walk away and go back to sulking.  But he couldn’t tell him the truth,
either.

“I
don’t know when they’re gonna let us out,” Joe said, “but I do know they’re not
gonna leave us in here forever.” 
Not by a long shot.
 

The kid
began to shake.  “I don’t want them to come back.  They scare me.”

They’re
gonna do a lot worse than scare us.
  Joe reached
out and put a hand on the boy’s thin shoulder, enveloping it with his palm. 
“Look, kid, they’re just big squid.  You find scarier stuff in your kitchen
sink.”

“They
don’t look like squid,” the kid whimpered.

He’s
right.  They’re goddamn aliens, you insensitive son of a bitch.
 
“Prunes, then.  Big, butt-ugly prunes.”

The kid
laughed, a relieved half-sob.  Joe patted his shoulder and stood up.

“Aren’t
you too big to be here?” an older girl behind Joe said, accusation strong in
her voice. 

Joe
flinched.  “Yeah, I’m fourteen,” he offered reluctantly.  Two years older than
the aliens’ max collection age.  What was worse, Joe was a freak.  At fourteen,
he was built like a professional NFL linebacker and already over six feet.  To
these kids, he probably looked eighty.

“So
why’d they take you?” another nearby girl demanded.

“I was
stupid,” Joe said, grimacing.

“Stupid
how?”

“I did
something they didn’t like,” Joe said, tensing his fists with the memory,
wishing he had somewhere he could hide from all of their piercing stares. 
Every
eye in the room was on him.  He probably looked like a lot of their dads. 

“Like
what?” a kid insisted.

Joe
grimaced.  “Look, uh…guys.  I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“You
should tell them you’re fourteen,” a girl said sagely. 

“Yeah,”
a little boy piped up.  “You can’t be here if you’re older than twelve.”  He was
probably seven or eight, and he looked perfectly sure that if Joe were to walk
up to the aliens right now and tell them he was fourteen, not twelve, he would
receive a Get Out Of Jail Free card and everything would be all right.

Obviously,
none of them had seen what Joe had done to get into this place.  Or the look in
the aliens’ eyes when they’d first shoved him into this huge room, alone, more
than a day before the other kids.

None
of them understand.
 
Joe felt an overwhelming urge to get away from them, to get back to
his empty spot against the wall and be alone, but he forced himself to smile,
instead.  “Maybe I’ll do that.”  Yeah, right about the time they pulled out a
gun and blew his head off for being too damn old.

Feeling
the pressure of their stares, Joe slunk back over to his ‘corner’ and turned to
partially face the wall.  It was the only way he could pretend they weren’t
watching him.

I
want to go home.  God, please just let me go home.

There
were no heavenly choirs, no celestial trumpets, no parting of the skies.  Just
hundreds of desperate little kids, watching him like he had all the answers.

CHAPTER 2
:  Little
Harry Simpson

Without
warning, the obsidian wall dripped open beside Joe, and a group of aliens
rushed inside in a wave.  They weren’t wearing the glistening black suits that
they had worn on the White House lawn, the ones that deflected bullets.  For
the first time, he could see the sticky brown skin up close, the four slender
tentacles protruding from each boneless arm, the big snakelike eyes that
reminded him of wet gummi bears, the two tentacles wriggling from their heads like
worms had burrowed into their brains.

In the
chaos that followed—aliens shouting, kids screaming, children scattering—Joe
ducked out the door and ran for it.

At
six-foot-one, with all of his spare time before the Draft spent practicing for
football season, Joe was faster—much faster—than his boneless five-foot
captors.  He peeled out of the room and down the closest red-lit hall.  The
aliens shouted at him through their translators for him to come back. 

Joe
ignored them and kept running.

Soon,
he was alone.  He stopped and glanced down two equally long corridors,
wondering which way was the way out. 

They
hadn’t left Earth yet.  The ship hadn’t so much as jiggled since they’d shoved
Joe inside the prison with the others only days before.

He
still had a chance. 

Joe
chose a corridor and hurtled down it, praying that he could find his way out. 
He charged down two more hallways—and then abruptly hit a dead end.  The
corridor terminated in a sleek black wall.  It was too abrupt, however,
obviously the entrance to another room or hall.  Joe desperately searched the
wall, looking for some sort of control pad or lock—something that would let him
inside.  Feeling the beginnings of panic, Joe swept his fingers across the
wall, digging at the sticky blackness seeking a button or catch, but he could
find no irregularities to indicate an entrance.

Behind
him, Joe heard the muffled pounding of boots as his pursuers caught up with
him.  Adrenaline scoured his chest and his breath began to come in quick,
labored pants as he frantically slapped at the corridor’s unyielding surface,
still to no avail.  Heart thundering a roaring staccato in his ears, Joe gave
up on the door and turned to backtrack.

Five
aliens blocked his path like wormy brown turds.  They had smallish black guns
out, grunting to themselves in their harsh alien language, pointing at him and
nodding their heads.

Joe
didn’t need their translators to know they were laughing at him.

The
alien in front, his wrinkled brown face streaked with light orange highlights,
was the loudest of the bunch.
 
The little device around his neck even
managed to interpret the amount of scorn in his voice.
“The pathetic
creature is too stupid to open a door.  We should leave it here to starve. 
It’s not going anywhere.”
 

Joe tensed. 
“Back off!  I’m fourteen.  I’m too old to be a soldier.”

Although
the translators around their necks didn’t repeat Joe’s words, the pale, scarred
alien in the back gave him an appraising glance.  Seemingly having no trouble
at all understanding him, it said,
“You’re right.  Commander Lagrah has
something else in mind for you.”

The
alien with the orange facial features made another grunting laugh. 
“You’re
too kind, Kihgl.  Just tell the Human we’re gonna kill it.”

“Be
silent, Tril.”
  The words rang from the translator
of the same alien in the back, the one called Kihgl.  Kihgl seemed to be a
lighter color than the rest, with droopier folds of skin and a startling
cross-hatching of black scars across his neck and face disappearing under a
crisp black uniform.

Tril
wrinkled his orange-tinted face. 
“It’s already caused us enough trouble…I
don’t see why we can’t extract a little payment before we kill it.”

“He’s
faster than you, Commander Tril.  He’s gonna be even harder to control if you
panic him.”