The Harvest (20 page)

“Do you mind?” she whispered.

“Of course not,” he replied, moving over
against the partition to make room for her on the narrow bunk.

“Can’t sleep.” Kelly pulled the sheets over
her and pressed into him.

“So you decided to come over and spoon with
me?” Shane teased. The arch of her back fit perfectly into the
curve made by his front.

“I guess so,” she said. He couldn’t see her
face, but he sensed her smile. “Your first time?”

He blushed. It sounded like the question
might have more to it than just spooning. A fire ignited in him,
and he felt possessed by her smell and the delicate texture of her
skin. He could barely breathe, but he was also painfully aware of
all the other kids around them. Not to mention, the rebels’ cameras
probably had a night-vision mode, so everything they did was being
watched.

“Uh, yeah,” he whispered, his lips near her
ear. “Aside from a near-death experience under a school bus in a
tornado. You?”

“Yeah, me too,” she whispered, sounding as
breathless as he felt. She pushed her hips tighter against him and
sighed.

Shane breathed in the smell of her hair,
soothed by her presence but also boiling inside with passion. The
turmoil in his mind vanished, all his attention on the areas where
she pressed against him, only their T-shirts and underwear between
them. As exciting as having her this close was, it also relaxed
him. He wouldn’t disrespect her by trying anything while they were
so exposed in the barracks, but his mind was free to imagine all
the things he’d do if they were alone. It took him away from the
traumatic past, and it stopped him thinking about what lay ahead.
Happier thoughts, of tasting her lips again and of exploring her
body, filled his mind. Although his veins pulsed with excitement,
having her this close was a comforting distraction that allowed
exhaustion to sneak in. Pulling her even tighter to him, he closed
his eyes with a grin on his lips.

“Rise and shine, tadpoles. Get on the line!”
Jones yelled. “The last one in push-up position has to clean the
head.”

“Damn,” Kelly said, rolling out of bed.

Steve was already up, giving them a
mischievous look. Kelly darted across the aisle onto the girls’
side just as Tracy rolled out of Jules’ rack. Shane, Steve, and
Maurice rushed to the line and dropped into push-up position.

“You guys too?” Steve teased quietly, raising
his head to look at Tracy, who was directly across from him.

“Shut up, dude,” she whispered back, glaring
at him. “It’s not like you didn’t already know.”

Steve chuckled again.

“You’re having way too much fun over here,”
Jones shouted. “Push-ups on my count—up, down, up, down… ”

The routine was the same as the day before,
push-ups and sit-ups on the cool barracks floor until they’d all
created puddles of sweat beneath them. Then they were allowed a
fifteen-minute bathroom break, where everyone rushed to pee and
brush their teeth. Jones yelled the entire time.

It amazed him how no one seemed embarrassed,
and everyone stayed out of each other’s way. In one day of
suffering together, they were starting to become gears in a
well-oiled machine.

Petrov even moved to let Shane spit in the
sink when he was brushing his teeth. Shane was cautious the boy
might be setting him up for a prank. Or perhaps losing one of his
buddies humbled the Russian, and he’d play nicer today. Anfisa’s
scolding last night might have had something to do with it too.
Regardless, Shane was glad for it. In the end, Jones was right.
They were all in this together.

On the tarmac, the predawn air was cool.
Shane settled into a mellow pace next to Steve at the back of their
group, ensuring no one got separated and ambushed in the dark
again. Cruising around the loop, he tilted his head back and half
closed his eyes, wishing he could get a couple of more hours of
sleep. Laura made pained grunting sounds every minute, but she kept
going. The Aussies plugged along behind them, forming a formidable
unit of fourteen people.

Up ahead, he saw the Koreans and the Chinese
run through the circle of light cast by the lamp above a hangar
door. They cruised along with an appearance of relative ease, their
quiet confidence enviable. He hoped his team would adopt a similar
demeanor as their training progressed. But then again, they had won
yesterday, so he reckoned he shouldn’t be too critical.

By the fourth lap, Maurice and Laura were
wheezing, barely moving faster than a walk. Steve was still
plodding along with his shoulders square and his chest pushed out,
as Shane expected he would until his heart burst if he was put to
the task.

“Pick up the speed, or I’ll run you until you
all puke!” Jones shouted at them as they passed.

“Come on, guys,” Shane encouraged. “There’s a
bottle of water waiting for us in the training building and another
lap coming to us if we don’t hurry.”

It was enough to get Laura moving faster. She
was at the front of his squad, and set the pace for everyone else.
They came around the north side of the tarmac, and Shane was
relieved to see Captain Jones standing at the open door to the
hangar where they’d had the morning lecture the day before,
directing people to enter.

“I never thought one of these metal chairs
could be so comfortable.” Maurice groaned and tilted up the bottle
of water he found under his seat.

“Today, we will do a walkthrough of an
Anunnaki recruit ship,” Jones announced, climbing up the metal
stage onto the podium. “Place your hands on your laps and
relax.”

Kelly reached over and grabbed his hand,
tugging it between them so she could hold it discreetly throughout
the simulation. In doing so, she moved closer to him, causing their
bare legs and arms to touch. He smiled at her, his heart
threatening to explode and kill them both when she smiled back.
When he felt the warmth and softness of her skin pressed against
his and she looked at him like she was now, time ceased to exist.
The rest of the world vanished, and he felt completely alive again.
Her spirit seemed to penetrate into his through the connection of
their skin and eyes. Her lips beckoned him like cool water did a
man who had gone thirsty for days. He had to stop himself from
leaning over and kissing her, almost forgetting they were sitting
in a crowded room with Jones glaring down at them.

Buzzing in his ear and a flash of bright
light tore him away from her. A warm breeze kissed his face, and he
opened his eyes, the joy of being so close to Kelly dissipating. He
was standing in a field. A large, pyramid-shaped mound covered in
neatly mown sod was in front of him. The rest of the students stood
on either side. They wore regular clothes, not the crimson armor of
the day before. He had on blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Kelly was
standing a few people away, like the aliens had separated them on
purpose for the simulation. She wore jeans as well, but had on a
tight, black tank top that kicked the embers of the fire she’d
started, sending a warm shower of sparks through him. They
exchanged a heated glance and he sighed, wishing for time they
couldn’t have.

Lily stood on the lawn in front of them,
wearing her usual black pantsuit and a kind smile on her face.
Shane liked her. She was the first person from this alien race he’d
met. He trusted her more than Jones, though maybe it was just
because Scarface never smiled. At the same time, it unnerved Shane
how he was willing to trust her so quickly, how he’d wanted to the
moment she’d walked into that farmhouse.

Her gaze swept across the group, connecting
with everyone. It seemed to convey a mix of admiration,
superiority, and concern. He suddenly wondered how old she was. She
must have been an adult to be flying the ship that crashed in New
Mexico, yet she looked less than thirty now. She was silent long
enough to make them shift uncomfortably and glance at each other,
like they were unable to bear her omniscient scrutiny any
longer.

“You’ve all seen these before,” she said,
pointing at the mound behind her. There was a flash of light, and
they were suddenly standing in the blazing sun, desert sands
stretching out around them.

“They are scattered across the globe.”

An Egyptian pyramid was in front of them,
twice as tall as the first mound.

“Humans used pyramids for many purposes;
burial grounds, temples, and gateways to other worlds,” she
continued.

Another flash transported them to a jungle.
Shane rubbed his eyes and swallowed the nausea caused by the
shifts. Monkeys shrieked and leapt through the treetops. Vines
entangled a Mayan pyramid whose peak pierced the lush, green
canopy.

“Whether the builders had direct contact with
the Anunnaki or were instructed subconsciously, they were all
driven by the same purpose.”

They flashed to another ruin—this one Shane
immediately recognized. It was a pyramid in Teotihuacan, the center
of the ancient Aztec empire. He’d just learned about the
bloodthirsty warriors at the end of the last school year. He gazed
up and down the Avenue of the Dead, stepped pyramids of various
heights on either side.

The sunlight glinted off something in the
clear blue sky. Shielding his eyes, he glanced up and saw a golden
craft flying high above the ruins.

“That’s an Anunnaki recruit ship,” Lily
explained, pointing skyward. “The primary interplanetary vessel
used by the enemy.”

As it drew closer, he could see that the dark
bottom of the vessel was hollow.

“Nearly all the pyramids your ancestors built
are landing sites, and they are on every continent in the world
except Antarctica and Australia,” Lily explained.

“Thank goodness for that,” Liam
whispered.

“The pyramids are docking terminals where the
ships can draw resources from the planet,” Jones boomed, stepping
next to Lily. “A large percentage of the older kids left on Earth
are gathering toward these structures now, driven by what to them
is an irresistible and instinctive urge. In reality, it is a
residual effect of the limbic manipulator, designed to aid the
Anunnaki in harvesting their slaves.”

Shane imagined the world outside of this
base. Without parents or governments, the good kids must be
fighting roving mobs of juvenile delinquents like the ones who
attacked the Leeville gym. And gangs like Shamus’ would be fleeing
the millions of rotting corpses left in the cities, terrorizing the
rural areas in search of food. Meanwhile, they all unconsciously
migrated toward these ancient sites, their fates decided millennia
ago.

“There are thousands of pyramids on Earth, many of them
undiscovered.”

“How can we possibly fight that many ships?”
Tracy asked, showing no qualms about interrupting Jones.

“Fortunately, the first wave of recruit ships
will be smaller,” he replied. “Another, larger fleet will arrive to
clean up the mess, after the primary recruit ships select their
slave soldiers.”

“What happens to Earth when they are done?”
an Israeli boy asked.

“They will destroy everything that humans
have created, returning the planet to the Stone Age and thereby
reducing the likelihood that humans will evolve enough
technologically to turn on the Anunnaki. Then they’ll leave a few
kids with wiped brains behind as seed for a new crop to be
available in the distant future.”

So it was a cycle. Earth was simply a farm.
Even if they succeeded at their impossible mission, it wouldn’t be
the end. There was no happily ever after. Humans were being dragged
into a centuries-old rebellion if they destroyed the recruit ships,
or an unjust war against other aliens that had been going on for
thousands of years if they failed.

It should have scared the crap out of
Shane—he expected that would be the normal reaction. Instead, it
just pissed him off. He looked around at the other kids and could
see most of them seemed to have a similar reaction—another reason
they must have been chosen for the assault.

“We should blow up all the pyramids before
they get here,” a Finnish boy said. “To keep them from
landing.”

“I like that you are thinking,” Lily replied.
“But if we do that, they’ll know we are planning to resist. It’s
better they land, thinking there is no threat on the planet and it
will be an easy harvest. This will allow us to ambush them. We need
to try to capture these ships so we can use them to fight the
second wave. Besides, the ships don’t need a pyramid to land.
They’re using them for resource extraction.”

“What will happen when the chosen team
destroys the command ship?” Anfisa asked, her tone indicating that
when she said chosen team, she meant the Russians.

“The other recruit ships all operate on
orders from the command ship,” Jones answered. “Disabling it will
cause chaos, which will allow us to overwhelm and capture all the
ships.”