The Filter Trap (33 page)

Behind her, the second rescue Chinook thrashed the grass as it prepared to land, using the smoke of the first helicopter as cover. A soldier in the chopper sprayed intermittent fire a hundred yards downfield through the black and gray wafting haze, pausing to steady and make sure the aim wasn’t low enough to hit any friendlies.

The soldiers, emboldened again, crept within yards of the delta ship, studying the corners of it, expecting one of the four-legged spiders to emerge at any time. In a firefight like this, the bearantulas struggled to see, since their eyes were in the middle of their “chests” instead of on a head. The backyard biologist in Amanda realized the things must have evolved as the largest predators on their planet, hunting much smaller game, probably literally running between their legs. If the soldiers could approximate higher ground, they’d have the advantage.

Amanda turned back to the hovering Chinook nad made eye contact with the M60 gunner. He shifted his aim and she turned again to face the alien ship. “Stand tall!” she shouted, “Their eyes are low, that gunner’s gonna aim over us so it can’t stand up. The first hairs on that thing’s . . . whatever . . . that peek over the edge, grenade it!”

The group advanced, grenades ready. When they were nearly upon the bus-sized black triangle the ear-splitting chatter of the M60 ceased. Something was wrong.

Amanda, still closer to the first downed Chinook, turned her head to avoid the slice of the main rotors as the chopper rolled right and dropped out of the sky. The rhythmic thumping of the Chinook rotors became an ear-splitting clanging followed by a scraping of metal. As it hit the ground, the rotors, still feeding on torque from the engine, warped, bent and splintered off into chest-width killing spears. One spear flew through the still smoking Chinook and sailed inches over Amanda’s head.

A stranger sound made the soldiers in front of Amanda wince as the tail rotor buzz-sawed right through their ranks and came to rest in the side of the alien undercarriage. With their big gun in the sky, not to mention their escape in pieces, most of the young soldiers lost their confidence.

They were easy picking for the short, furry figure that took a sniper position on top of its own ship. Retreating soldiers were cut to ribbons. Closer soldiers moved forward and hid under the tipping backside of the delta ship, out of view of the laser-wielding sniper on top.

The creature focused its weapon on the second downed Chinook, cutting it in large pieces through the underside. In full view of the soldiers hiding under the back of the delta ship, when one of the larger pieces of the Chinook cut away it revealed the former pilot.

Through this, Amanda lay flat in the grass, searching her training for what to do.

“Run!” she screamed, and the remaining soldiers headed to either side of the field, perpendicular to the alien’s line of sight between the two downed craft and its ship. The giant spider thing took the bait. Its downward-facing eyes saw the movement of the soldiers on the side and aimed.

Amanda hated using her fellow Marines in such a way, but she was the closest to the second downed Chinook. She knew the others would do the same if the roles were reversed but the order gave her no pleasure. She didn’t have long to think about it as she sprinted to the chopper and slid through one of the slices in the bottom. She had to pull apart and remove the pieces of the pilot to climb where she needed to go.

The chopper had come down on its side, and Amanda noticed that while the gunner had been sliced through, the gun remained, sticking up like a flag from the hulking green fuselage. In the darkness inside, she struggled to climb up to the opening, guided by the trickle of stars against the visual silence of the bare gray metal. Unlike the first rescue chopper, the alien weapon hadn’t managed to cut a fuel line or anything explosive in this one . . . yet.

Amanda delicately reached her hand up and found the grips of the heavy machine gun and pushed as hard as she could. It moved about forty-five degrees closer to her target, but not enough. If she pulled the trigger she’d probably down more Chinooks, instead of helping her friends; something was in the way. Taking more risk than she originally intended, she pulled herself through the gap and stayed low, lying on the exposed and upright side of the chopper hull.

The chaff dispensers, normally mounted to the side of the hull just in front of the rear gunner window, had been slammed beneath the gun mount. It didn’t look fused to the hull, it was just stuck there. A solid kick might do away with it. Amanda slowly moved her leg out and across.

The helicopter shifted. The big exterior engine was sliced partially away from the rotor housing and slid across. Amanda swung her body over the hull, holding onto the edges of the gunner window and almost avoided the big cone at the front. The tip caught her boot and banged her leg against the hull, almost taking the rest of her with it before thudding to the earth and cracking.

‘Fuck it, my foot already hurts and that bug’s gonna aim for me next,’ she thought as she swung back the other way violently. She smashed her foot into the mangled chaff box as hard as she could. It popped out like nothing, but she overshot and the big gun fell all the way down onto her leg. She fought the urge to glance back at the hairy monster, she knew she’d never see it coming anyway, best try to ignore it and try to live, and that gave her the best chance of actually doing it. She pulled her body forward using every ounce of muscle in her core to drag the long heavy gun turret off.

Metal sizzled where her back had lain just seconds before. She hurled herself into the dark safety inside the crippled chopper. Light poured through new lines inches from her body as the alien blindly shot at her through the hull. Amanda climbed to the roof again, grabbing the gun and aiming as fast as she could before shooting a solid stream of M60 rounds right into the mouth of the hairy bastard some eighty yards downfield.

M60 rounds had a legendary might, making quick destruction of most materials in their way, but the thing that received their push on the other end of the football field didn’t explode in a cloud of blood like any animal manufactured on Earth might. Instead, it took the rounds like a hammering; its body began to deform, joints thumped and dislocated from the pressure and body cavities caved, but nothing leaked.

‘Maybe they don’t bleed,’ Amanda thought. ‘The ones that took a pounding back in the house were protected by their fur. Super-Kevlar fur? Now that’s an evolutionary advantage!’

Only a few shots connected before the ugly thing either retreated or fell behind the safety of its own ship. Amanda kept firing, bouncing rounds off the black underside to give the thing a message: don’t even think about poking your little laser at us again!

The ship’s black armor absorbed the impact of the M60 rounds and toppled onto its back.

Amanda stopped firing for a moment and yelled, “Flanks!”

The soldiers stormed forward as the ship settled with its black bottom armor upright. Amanda kept the rounds coming at the unshielded crevice where the alien hid. The soldiers emptied entire rifle clips into the small gap between the craft and the ground. The part of the ship that wasn’t covered in the black gunk started busting up quickly.

“Clear! I hope . . .” one soldier said. He found himself alone, however. The rest of the soldiers surrounded what might be a more immediate threat: the small furry body climbing slowly away from the craft at the back.

“Where do you think you’re going?” one of the soldiers asked, before chucking the butt of his rifle at one of the upper appendages. The creature stopped moving. “We got ‘im!” the soldier yelled to Amanda, while the others pushed their boots onto it. It didn’t offer any resistance, either dead or accepting it could do no more.

“Take out the boxes on its arms. Get rid of that black laser shit,” Amanda said, as she ran across the field to join them.

The soldiers banged at the little spindles on the mitt-like hands. They quickly retracted and disappeared into the fur.

A quarter mile away the evening clouds turned yellow and the soldiers heard a crash echo forward down the miracle mile.

“That had to be one of ours,” a young soldier noted.

“Speaking of which, where’s the rest of the rescue ‘nooks?”

They could no longer see the Chinooks coming in from the west.

“Some of you had shortwaves when we left base, right?” Amanda asked.

The soldiers began shaking their heads, until a man stepped forward. He reached into his pack and pulled out a crank radio the size of a laptop and a corded squawk box. “I’ve got the shortwave, ma’am,” he said, handing them over, “but I ain’t never used it.”

“Neither have I,” she said as she cranked it up and started pressing buttons.

“Ground force, you there?” asked a voice.

“We’re here!” she shouted. “At the pickup. Where are the rest of the ‘nooks?”

“Pulled back, Private,” the voice stated. “Not enough support; our Apaches are going down left and right. See if you kids can wait it out till morning. We’re moving in amphibious teams from the Pacific.”

“Till morning!” the young soldier emoted. “We won’t make it till nightfall.”

Amanda pressed the button again. “I bet you’d like to get your hands on one of our little friends, wouldn’t you?”

“You have one, alive; breathing?”

“Do they breathe?” another soldier whispered.

Amanda let the voice on the other end wait. She said to the soldiers, “Let’s find out,” and motioned towards the body with her rifle.

Jill found it hard to quell her fears as she walked down hallways, always with soldiers stomping in the opposite direction. She relied on an old tool, curiosity, to distract herself.

“What kind of biological contamination protocols have they put in place?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Kam admitted.

“Is it like the ones we saw in the photos, in the Mojave?”

“I don’t know,” Kam said more forcefully.

They passed through a containment door, guards scanning their eyes before allowing entry.

“Is it in a self-contained environment?”

“I have no idea, Jill.”

As they kept walking, the lights dimmed and the hallway thinned, an optical illusion created by the massive steel door at the end. Two guards, dwarfed by the door, asked to scan their eyes and swipe their fingers.

“Doors like that are only made to keep extremely dangerous things in . . . or out,” Jill whispered.

“Behind this door is the presidential bunker, ma’am,” one of the guards informed her.

“I take it he’s not in there now?”

“I am not at liberty to say, ma’am.”

The second guard turned to the first, “Shit, Brian, she’s going
in there
, she’ll know more than we do shortly.” He turned to Jill. “Maybe you can tell us what they’re hiding in there when we see you on the way out?”

“If I live to come back out.”

Kam cocked his head at her, but the first soldier took the bait.

“Seems like you already know what’s in there.”

“I’ll have to turn your words around on you, gentlemen,” she said. “I’m sure I’m not allowed to say what’s in there.”

The soldiers rolled their eyes.

“I guarantee you you’re safer on
this
side,” she added. The soldiers glanced at each other and slowly pushed the thick door aside.

“I
told
you they were storing the bombs down there,” the second soldier said to the other under his breath.

Instead of correcting him, Jill turned back to Kam. “Will they have performed CAT scans or any kind of non-invasive exploratory?”

“We’ll see.”

As they passed through the opening the first soldier asked the other, “Why would they check for cats inside a bomb?”

“It’s not a ‘Cat’ scan, dumbass, it’s an x-ray machine. I saw a show on the Discovery Channel where they used it to look inside a mummy case. They’re probably checking to see if the fuel is still good or something.”

“Discovery Channel,” the other soldier scoffed. “Aliens!” he said sarcastically.

Jill stopped and backtracked as the soldiers were about to seal the door again.

“Excuse me,” she asked. “Have either of you been up top since the Event?”

They shook their heads.

“Thank you,” she said, trying to disguise her nerve.

When the huge door came to a stop and the locking mechanisms started to spin from outside she held Kam’s arm. “They have no idea,” she said. “I thought the whole world would know we’re not alone by now.”

Kam gently removed her hand. “No satellites. No Internet. The aliens are mostly sticking to coasts. Most of Middle America is more concerned with finding food and water than searching for military radio broadcasts. Not that anybody carries around radios like that anymore anyway. The last national news they heard, if anything, was the president’s broadcast before the tsunami hit the mainland.”

“Kam,” she said, more worried than before. “If nobody knows aliens are here, maybe we’re making a history down here nobody will read. We’re more expendable than I thought.”

“You can still refuse to come with me, you know.”

Jill pursed her lips, caught confronting her curiosity with her rational fear. She didn’t respond, but walked straight ahead. Through the door was a sterilized environment, metal floors and walls leading to a bank of windows. Whatever personal effects the rooms used to hold for the president they were gone now. Given the situation, it more resembled some kind of spaceship, complete with large-headed space suits walking about. They slowed and looked through the transparent plastic windows into the lab areas.

“Is it conscious?” she asked.

“How else would they expect me to try to communicate with it?” Kam answered sternly, then lightened up. “Look, all I know is that it’s here and they asked for us.”

“You kids here to see the alien?”

A white hazard suit with full anti-contamination headgear approached. When he was close enough, Kam and Jill recognized Bolton through the faceplate.

“Kerry!” Jill yelped, happy to see the one other person at the base that generally seemed to be on their side.

“Oh, watch it, Jill!” Bolton said as he retreated from her. “I think I’m not allowed to touch anybody till I take this off. They let me look in the window.”

“Really? They let you see it before us?” Kam asked.

“Son, being interim President of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee has its perks. I reckon this is about as foreign a relation as I’m ever going to see. I can tell you you’re in for a treat. Follow me, they sent me out here to get you.”

The senator took them to a nearby room where Kam and Jill were fitted with their own hazard suits. They proceeded through several decontaminations, before arriving at a final darkened room.

“Ignore everything he says,” Bolton said as he left.

Jill and Kam looked at each other through the suits, imagining for a moment Bolton was referring to the alien they were about to see. The dim room had a wide transparent window and a long table, like an interrogation room, though there were hints it was once something else. It had been hastily remodeled, stripped of former accoutrements that still left holes in the wall. The multiple security cameras probably weren’t new, though.

The four other people in the room, all with hazard suits, barely acknowledged the two scientists. One turned to speak to Kam and Jill directly.

“Don’t fool yourself into thinkin’ we brought you down here to whisper sweet nothins’ in this thing’s ear. Actually, we don’t even know if it
has
ears yet, but that’s beside the point.”

Jill and Kam’s shrugs of discontent showed through the gangly hazard suits. Pith’s voice was unmistakable, not to mention his disdain.

“What I need you two to do is get actionable intelligence; information about how he does what he does. We’ve got doctors up the wazoo down here, but none of them have an inch of knowledge about language, SETI protocol, things like that. They’re all scared shitless to be here; I’m sure you two are shittin’ your pants with excitement.”

He paused, expecting them to speak up. When they didn’t, he continued.

“We staged a resistance demonstration in LA, Operation Cold Flash. A good many soldiers died, but some of
these
fucks went down as well.” Pith motioned toward the dark window in the room. Kam and Jill started to walk towards the window. Pith let them go and kept speaking.

“We hauled some of their little ships out, we’ve got Air Force Intelligence all over that. But our prize possession at the moment is this little guy.”

He paused again, this time because he was unsure how to put it.

“This thing is real nasty. He brought down a chopper and killed everyone inside before our Marines on the ground popped him with a Stinger missile. We figure he’s their version of a soldier, or maybe they’re just all tough sons a’ bitches. Either way you two let us know the moment you feel anything screwy is going on. This guy hasn’t said anything yet, but it’s possible they could be telepathic or something. One of the soldiers said she saw another one open a mouth, but we haven’t seen an orifice yet.”

Pith paused again, then turned to the other hazard suit.

“Alright, Johnny, light it up!”

The lights in the room seen through the two-way glass turned on. A furry thing sat on a white ledge in an all-white room. It was crumpled, damaged in some way. It slowly turned to rest its back torso on the wall, revealing multiple black eyes.

“Can it see us?” Kam asked.

“Oh, hell no,” Pith scoffed.

“I imagine it’s smart enough to realize we’re watching it, though,” Jill asserted.

A small orifice in the middle of the eyes appeared and the furry monster’s body slowly heaved in and out from the center.

“There! How is it breathing? Does it breathe?” asked Jill.

Pith and ‘Johnny,’ the other hazard suit, rushed to the window to see.

“This is the first time it’s done that,” Johnny said. “From our earlier observation it seemed to like a methane and oxygen mix, like our own atmosphere but with the quantities reversed. With infrared and other sensors we saw methane pouring out and we kept watch on the oxygen levels. Plus we took atmospheric readings in their ship.

“Your friend Dr. Sands was right. The whole bottom of the ship is covered with some kind of endothermic material. Anyway, by the time we looked for atmosphere in the ‘delta’ ship the whole thing had depressurized. We figured since they’re practically naked they can breathe our air, but we didn’t know for how long, or what concentration.”

Pith added, “Your buddy Doc Sands also told us the shots of their home planet indicate a lot more methane in the atmosphere, nearly toxic levels for us.”

“Methane?” Kam said, “If they breathe in methane what comes back out?”

“Another good question. We have no idea, but Johnny here is convinced the methane is being converted to carbon and hydrogen, then mixing with the latent oxygen and coming back out as water . . . through their eyes! The fur around the eyes seems to be constantly mottled and wet, like it can’t stop crying.”

“I would cry if I was a prisoner on
their
ship,” Jill said.

Pith took offense. “You wouldn’t cry; you’d be dead!”

“I’m sorry,” Jill retracted. “I only meant that if they have fear, this thing is probably experiencing quite a bit right now. It’s premature to assume water is simply from a chemical reaction. For example, it may also be lubricating the eyes to see well, since we know their home atmosphere is denser, like us trying to see underwater. Maybe they’re closer than we are to an ocean-living relative. The lack of a head certainly points in that direction. It kind of looks like an overgrown starfish.”

“Don’t get too attached, Doc. It ain’t a pet.”

The alien looked around as if dazed, lurching to the floor. It slowly moved toward the two-way mirror, dragging an unmoving rear appendage. It touched the mirror as if expecting something to happen, stepping back in obvious frustration when nothing did. After hobbling back to the bench, it propped itself on its back. The little mouth-like hole struggled to suck in air through clenched teeth, but it also made a sound, a modulated whistle broken with staccato streaks of pips.

“Did you say a soldier heard it speak?” Jill asked.

“Yes, closer than we are now,” Pith said and pivoted towards Kam. “So, hotshot, prove your worth: what’d it say?”

“I have no idea . . .” Kam said in amazement. “What kind of monitoring have you got in here?”

Pith grabbed a tablet from Johnny and shoved it at Kam.

“Don’t get too excited,” he warned. “No settings change without my authorization.”

Kam swiped between spectrographic data, infrared, sound frequency modulation, anything and everything. Kam played back the sounds the bearantula made through the sound application.

“Just as I suspected,” he claimed with confidence. “He’s talking, we just can’t hear all of it. Look.” He showed Jill the audio frequency graph of the noises the alien made.

“The staccato parts only stop at our ears,” she said. “Dogs can probably hear it, but we can’t.”

“Look at the modulation,” Kam said, “repeating, but changing.”

“It’s trying to talk to us,” Jill assessed.

Kam looked up from the tablet at Pith. “Can I go in there?” he asked excitedly.

“Kamran, no!” Jill hushed.

“Up to you, son,” Pith said. “Go in there unarmed and you’re braver than me.”

So much of Kam’s life had been spent explaining away the artifacts of long dead societies, decoding whispers proffered by scratches on tombs, and now he sat on the brink of communicating with a truly unknown, literally alien, and more importantly,
living
culture. He could set the tone for generations to come in their relations, whether for war or peace, between the two species.

“General,” Jill pleaded, “it’s too dangerous, what if it learns all our secrets from him?”

Pith scoffed. “If they can read minds, it’s too late already to worry about that. Anything we gain, even from the doc’s death, would be a boon. I ain’t gonna stop him if he volunteers. And if he don’t, I might make him anyway.”

Pith turned to Kam. “Our soldiers in battle with these things said they had the strength of ten men. This one's worse for wear, but it could still crush you if you get too close. And we ain’t gonna rescue ya. We can find more linguists; we may only get one alien.” He stepped closer and deepened his voice. “You sure about this, son?”