The Harvest (35 page)

The boy and the rest of the dazed kids didn’t
wait for an answer. They turned away and walked back down the
alley, joining a river of kids flowing down the next street.

“Someone should take you back to Dr. Blain,”
Jules said, her eyes filled with concern as she stared at the
three-inch gash in Kelly’s shoulder.

There wasn’t much blood, the wound so jagged
it clotted quickly. It was a miracle it didn’t hit her heart or
lung. She took it as a sign she was meant to keep going. The spear
lay on the ground at her feet, its tip disgusting. Without some
medicine soon, she was going to get a nasty infection. The Aussies
stood around her, all attention focused on her wound.

“No,” she said through clenched teeth. “We
have to get to the pyramids and complete the mission.”

Ethan’s eyes met hers. “She’s right. And the
boy is right. She’ll be treated there.”

The Anunnaki would repair any injuries and
cure any diseases the slaves had during the harvesting process.
Kelly just had to stay strong until they made it to the ship.
Hopefully, whatever germs and nastiness she’d been infected with
wouldn’t take her down before she got there.

“Let’s go,” she said firmly.

Grimacing, she picked up her gun with her
good side. Resting the barrel over her shoulder, she held it by the
pistol grip with her finger near the trigger. Jules’ eyes were
filled with concern. She was definitely the yin to Tracy’s yang.
The latter wouldn’t have given her a second glance, though she’d
learned it wasn’t because she didn’t care. Tracy just seemed so
afraid of appearing soft and got all tense when the situation
demanded even a measure of compassion.

On first impression, Jules looked and acted
even tougher than Tracy. Over time, she’d learned that this tall
and lean girl with piercing green eyes was a total sweetheart. Her
concern was a hindrance right now—Jules needed to focus on the
mission and not on her. Not giving her a chance to object, Kelly
stepped around her and headed to the other end of the alley. The
parade of kids passed on the street beyond.

She didn’t look back to make sure anyone else
followed, afraid someone would try and talk her out of continuing.
Although each step hurt, sending jolts of pain radiating away from
her injury, she was determined not to let it show. Her dad had
taught her how wounded animals would hide their pain until the very
end, so they wouldn’t appear vulnerable to predators. If they could
do it, so could she. She wouldn’t acknowledge the wound, would make
it to the ship and do what had to be done to save her sister.

“They look awfully happy,” Ben whispered
ominously.

“If we’re mingling with them, we need to look
the same,” Ethan warned.

At the end of the alley, Kelly paused. The
street was packed from sidewalk to sidewalk with a parade of
teenagers coming from the east. She took a deep breath, bracing
herself to step in and be whisked away by these kids. They hadn’t
planned to intermingle with the enslaved teens until they were
close to the pyramid, but this seemed like the fastest and safest
way to get there now.

Dismissing the fear that somehow joining with
them would cause her to lose her free will, she stepped into an
opening in the ranks. She sweated from the agony each step caused
her and fell in behind a boy wearing a strange, brimless hat and a
white dress that looked like a long-sleeved shirt stretching all
the way to the ground.

Jules stepped in on her left side and Ethan
on her right, the rest of the Aussies behind them. The blissful
teenagers seemed glad to move aside and make room. Though they were
surrounded by hundreds of kids, none of them talked. They kept
their eyes forward, smiling and marching toward a horrible
destiny.

How long had they been delayed by the attack
of the skin-faces? She worried too much time was lost. She made an
effort to go faster, stepping around the boy in front of her, but
the little burst of speed taxed her to the point that she almost
had to stop, and the pain left her dizzy.

“You guys need to push ahead and leave me
here,” she said, panting.

“I don’t see any reason for leaving you,”
Jules countered, sounding agitated. “We’re headed in the right
direction now, and we’ll be there in no time.”

“We’re already behind, Jules,” she said
firmly. “You guys need to make up some lost time.” She glanced at
her, trying to convey that she wasn’t asking. “I’m gonna be useless
once we get there anyway. At least until they heal me.”

Jules didn’t look at her, seeming like she’d
decided she wasn’t leaving her and there was nothing Kelly could
say to change her mind. Anger flashed in her. All that mattered was
completing the mission, and Jules was suddenly turning into a
mother hen.

She looked over at Ethan. When he returned
her gaze, she was relieved to see him nod.

“She’s right,” he said, just loud enough for
the others to hear. “We’ve got to press forward.” Looking at her,
he spoke with a quieter voice. “You think you can handle recruiting
the enslaved kids after we blast the reactor?”

“Of course,” she replied as confidently as
she could. She didn’t want to give him any reason not to leave her
behind.

He nodded again. “Alright, good luck.” To
everyone else, he said, “Let’s go, people.”

Ethan slipped between two of the possessed
teens ahead of them. They parted, not appearing the least bit
bothered about being passed. The other Aussies followed. Jules was
the last one, hanging back.

“Go, Jules,” Kelly demanded. “I’ll be fine.
They need you. Everyone needs you.”

Her lower lip protruded slightly, and her
brow furrowed. She kept her head straight a moment longer,
pretending to ignore her. Kelly didn’t stop staring, conveying that
she wouldn’t back down. Jules finally glanced over and frowned.

“Damn you,” she growled.

“I’ll see you soon enough,” Kelly said in a
softer voice. “Once this is all over.”

Jules’ eyes looked damp. She didn’t seem to
think she’d see her again. Kelly smiled at her and then turned her
head forward, assuming the increasingly dazed expression of those
walking around them.

Her tall, crew-cut-wearing friend let out a
shaky and extended sigh. Jules pressed forward, pushing between the
kids to catch up with the Aussies. Within a few seconds, she was
gone. Darkness seemed to close in, though there wasn’t a cloud in
the sky. Kelly felt terribly alone, surrounded by hundreds of teens
who were slowly losing themselves, their minds being erased by the
Anunnaki.

The
kid in front of Shane stepped through the door, and he followed,
trying to keep his eyes forward. Adrenaline coursed through his
veins, making it hard to stand still in the line.

His heart thumped so hard he feared one of
the aliens standing next to the bright lights on either side would
notice the arteries pulsing in his neck. Or they might see the drop
of sweat making its way over his temple and pull him aside to find
out what kept him from acting blissfully stupefied like the rest of
the teens. Somehow, he was allowed to continue into the chamber
past each inspection point.

He listened as he stepped forward, afraid
he’d hear one of his friends get discovered. This room was darker
with only the lines of kids illuminated by spotlights. Anunnaki
stood in the shadows between the lines. Seeing them gave him a
measure of relief. They wore white lab coats that looked straight
out of one of his dad’s girlfriend’s fashion magazines, not armor.
It meant the enemy believed he and his team were just as enslaved
as the rest.

“Shed your clothing,” a soft, female voice
ordered in Anunnaki.

The kids in front of him obediently stripped
and tossed their clothes into round chutes that whisked them away.
Then they promptly returned to the position of attention,
displaying no modesty at being nude.

He couldn’t afford a moment for
embarrassment. When it was his turn to drop his pants, he did it
quickly, mimicking the boy ahead of him. Then he focused on the
boy’s curly, brown hair and tried to keep his mind clear, afraid
his blushing would be the thing to give him away. The lights
blinded him, and he couldn’t see the faces of the Anunnaki on
either side, but he could feel them looking at him. A history
lesson about the South before the Civil War came to mind. This
must’ve been how the African slaves who stood on the auction block
felt.

Ahead of the curly-haired boy, he saw an
Anunnaki soldier step up to the line and tug someone aside. For a
moment, she was in Shane’s line of sight, a tall, olive-skinned
girl with long, black hair that reflected the bright light. The
soldier guided her off to the side and into the shadows.

They were either picking out the kids who
didn’t look fully hypnotized or choosing slaves for other purposes
besides soldiering. He knew this was another hurdle they’d have to
cross, but it still took him by surprise when he saw her taken
away.

Stay calm and breathe.

Shane took another step. Trying to get a
picture of his surroundings with his peripheral vision was making
his eyes burn. Giving up, he focused on the brown curls ahead. He
could feel their eyes on him. They whispered to each other and made
approving sounds. The curls moved forward, and he followed. After
fifteen paces through the blinding lights, he passed into a darker
area.

His eyes adjusted, and his courage swelled.
If he could make it past such close inspection, surely he was home
free. There wasn’t an opportunity for him to try to look back and
see if his friends made it.

Green wedges of light came from both sides.
They were scanning him. The curly-haired boy raised his arms, and
Shane threw his up without hesitation. There was a loud hiss.
Flashes of red sprang from the floor and shot down from the
ceiling. Through his visor, he could see the back of curly’s red
armor, the black stripe of the slave soldier running between his
shoulder blades.

Armor covered every part of his body from his
head to his feet. Stifling a sigh, he was relieved to be masked and
hidden from the view of the enemy. Most of the simulations he
remembered from the neural upload were conducted from this point
on, so he felt like he was practically home free for an instant.
But then he began to worry that the suit would be monitoring his
vitals and other data closely—it might be reporting to his new
masters’ computers. They could be watching him even more closely
than before.

A sudden burst of cool air puffed from the
interior lining of the armor, like it sensed his sweating and was
trying to cool him down. The suit and its onboard computer were
capable of so much; they’d seen only half of what it could do in
the simulations. Slowing his breathing, he tried to act as
mesmerized as he had before. He followed the armored slave ahead of
him as he moved toward the next chamber.

He worried about his friends. Some of them
had to be in his line behind him, and he never heard any commotion
that would’ve come from their discovery. But at least two teammates
were in other lines, which had now been separated into individual
tubes. They had to make it to the chamber where the slaves would
receive their final neural upload, and then they’d be reunited.

The female voice that told them to strip
before played softly from speakers near his ears. It relayed a
story of people coming from the stars to influence man and
explained it was the Anunnaki who brought humans out of the Stone
Age. She claimed they’d fought off other alien species that tried
to take the planet in the past, and said they were here to help
humans defeat a new enemy. As if activating the slave gene wasn’t
enough, the enemy was brainwashing their new recruits. If Shane
didn’t know they planned to pit humans against each other for sport
and then use the winners as slave mercenaries in wars throughout
the galaxy, he might’ve believed they were here to help.

The next chamber would be where he and his
friends could slip away into the passageway that would lead to the
reactor. A soldier standing near the entrance gave him a rifle, but
the charge gauge for it in his helmet read zero. Arriving at the
large chamber, he met with hundreds of red-clad humans standing in
ranks. They tilted their heads back, their rifles across their
chests. They were receiving the neural upload that would teach them
how to use their new armor and weapons and give them their mission
plans.

Once the upload was complete, the slave
soldiers relaxed. They removed their helmets and started talking,
examining their weapons and armor.

They seemed free, mingling with each other,
joking and laughing like they’d been together for years. But they
were speaking Anunnaki. This was scarier than an army of
glazed-eyed automatons. Via their neural upload, these teens had
the education of a Navy Seal, and they were wearing the high-tech
smart armor of a super soldier from the future. But what made them
most formidable was that they would all be fully committed to
fighting for the Anunnaki.