The Harvest (9 page)

“It’s the Koreans,” Jones explained once the
engine on the helicopter spun down enough for him to be heard.
“They’re a very promising group of teenagers, all part of the South
Korean National Tae Kwon Do team. They were slated to be in the
next Olympics.”

“How are we gonna compete with that?” Laura
asked.

“They are formidable, but each of the teams
has characteristics that give them a distinct advantage,” Jones
reassured. “Don’t forget—we might not even have a chance if it
weren’t for you.” A hint of admiration took the edge off his gruff
tone. Judging by his drill-sergeant behavior thus far, Shane
reckoned it was a rare occurrence. This dude preferred one-way
conversations, with him yelling the entire time.

Shane stared across the tarmac, studying the
new team. The shortest of the girls stepped ahead of the group and
bowed to Lily. Unheard greetings were exchanged, and then Lily
turned and led them to the building, where she would undoubtedly
show them the same video he and his friends saw.

The short girl at the head of the Koreans—who
he reckoned had to be their leader—looked at Shane as she walked.
Her steely expression promised she would not be an easy adversary.
Shane met her gaze, knowing looking away would give her confidence.
He wasn’t about to do that. They passed each other before their eye
contact broke.

“Did you get a
look at those guys?” Jules asked once they entered the
barracks.

“Yeah,” Kelly replied. “I hope our little
competition doesn’t involve fighting each other.”

“Right?” Laura seconded with a chuckle.

“Hand-to-hand combat is part of your
training,” Jones corrected.

“How’s that?” Steve asked, sounding less
intimidated. Not a single member of the Korean team looked like
they weighed half what he did, and Steve was solid muscle.

“We’ll be using an advanced form of MAC
training, which stands for Modern Army Combatives.” Pride entered
Jones’ gruff tone. “The version we will train you with is a hybrid
between what was used to train your Special Forces and CIA teams
and the training system used to prepare rebels for missions on our
home planet. The training is designed to nurture your inborn
warrior instinct and help you face the enemy with fearless
aggression. The contests will motivate you and help us determine
which group will have the highest probability of success on the
mission, so we can determine who to send against the flagship.
While much of the score will be accrued by tests of strategy and
mental endurance, two major components are physical and
combative.”

“Damn, you’re screwed,” Tracy said, looking
at Laura.

“What?” Laura glared at her. “You don’t know
me.”

“You’re right,” Tracy replied,
condescendingly. “I don’t.”

Shane looked back and forth between the
girls, uncertain as to what was going on. Before the world fell
apart, he’d only known them in passing and hadn’t really ever hung
out with either of them. He’d never seen them interact at school
and, as far as he knew, they’d just met two days ago. For some
reason, Tracy didn’t seem to like Laura. It was like the quiet Goth
girl had done something horrible to her in the past, or maybe Tracy
just sensed weakness in her and didn’t think she belonged here.
They glared at each other for a moment, and then turned their
attention to the lodgings.

The barracks was a long, rectangular room
with two doors, the one they’d entered through and another
twenty-five yards down.

“Bathroom, beds, study area.” Jones pointed
from the second door at the far end to the two rows of bunks taking
up either side of most of the room, and then at the brown, metal
chairs in front of a flat-screen TV that hung on the wall to their
left.

It reminded Shane of a chicken house, long,
narrow, and designed to pack in a bunch of birds, or in this case,
people.

“Wow, this is much more than we need,” Shane
observed, concerned.

“All seven teams will sleep in here,” Jones
explained.

“I was afraid of that.”

The ill-tempered alien didn’t acknowledge
him, walking to the TV and picking up a remote.

“Battle videos, audio files, interviews with
soldiers and civilians, physiological analyses, engineering
lectures on spacecraft and armor—everything you need to know about
the Anunnaki plays in a loop here.”

He touched a button on the remote and a
leaner, unscarred version of Jones appeared, but the sound was
muted. Shane selected a set of headphones from a basket to the side
of the TV with a tag that read “English” on it. He slipped them on,
and the alien’s voice played in his ears. It was a lecture on
Anunnaki anatomy, talking about their muscle connections and how
they made most Anunnaki physically weaker than the average human.
But, he warned, their armor more than made up for the
difference.

Taking off the headphones, he returned them
to the basket. Five other baskets hung on the wall, each with a
different language tag on it. Shane gathered at least one other
English-speaking team would be joining them. There were twice as
many headphones in that language than the rest.

“The loop takes seventy-two hours to get
through, and then it replays. You should spend as much of your
limited free time as possible viewing these lessons,” Jones
advised. “The more you learn, the more effective you’ll be when the
time comes for you to try to save this world.”

“No pressure,” Maurice said, laughing
nervously.

“I’m sure Lily made it clear, but to put it
in words you can understand, we don’t intend to sugarcoat anything.
You must fully grasp the magnitude of this situation, so the only
one surprised during your attack is the enemy.” Jones shifted his
cold gaze from Maurice to the rest of them. “We want you fully
prepared. If you lose, we lose—my people have no place else to go
either,” he added, no less aggression in his voice.

“Come this way, and I’ll show you the
quads.”

They followed him past the TV area and
between the bunks. Once they were in the aisle, Shane could see
narrow panels separated the beds, creating cubicles that slept four
people per section. The quads opened onto the aisle, affording no
privacy from the people on the opposite side. In each divided area,
four metal lockers sat under the high windows on the exterior
walls. There were no locks on them to secure valuables, not that
Shane or his friends had any. All they had left at this point was
each other.

“This first set of quads belongs to you,”
Jones growled. “Boys on the left, girls on the right.”

“I guess that means we get an extra bed,”
Maurice said, cheerful in spite of the gruff alien’s
condescension.

One of the bunks had stacks of black clothing
on it—seven piles of sweatpants, shorts, and T-shirts—all the same
as the ones Dr. Blain had provided for him.

“Looks like we all have to wear
butt-huggers,” Steve complained, picking up the running shorts from
the stack with the largest-sized clothing in it.

“They suit some of us quite nicely,” Kelly
whispered to Shane.

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “I can’t wait to see you
in them.” He shot a grin at her, and she was the one blushing this
time.

There was also a small, clear plastic case
with an earbud in it that looked like a tiny, transparent hearing
aid, and a paper cup with five large pills in it.

“What’s this?” Jules asked, picking up the
earbud. “I didn’t think we’d need to wear it until we attacked the
Anunnaki.”

“It is the device that will suppress the
slave gene, but it’s also a translator and the simulator
interface,” Jones explained. “You’ll need to wear it at all times
during training so you can understand the non-English speaking
teams.”

“What about the Anunnaki?” Jules asked. “What
language do you speak?”

Shane tried hard not to smile. She was pithy
and aggressive as any of them—a fitting complement to his team.
Jones’ face twitched—he clearly didn’t appreciate the label.

“
They
speak a universal language
everyone on this planet will understand. To you, it will be
English. To the Chinese, it will be Mandarin,” he replied. “You’ll
understand the Anunnaki, and they’ll understand you.”

He wondered why the alien kept the scar on
his face. After what Dr. Blain had done to the gash in Shane’s
chest, he was certain she could fix anything. Perhaps the captain
was just trying to look as intimidating as he sounded.

“And these?” Laura asked, poking her finger
at the horse pills.

“Your training will be exceptionally
vigorous,” Jones replied. “Those contain a special mix of amino
acids, super nutrients, and vitamins Dr. Blain put together to help
your body and mind recover quicker. If you don’t take them, you
will fall behind.”

Not allowing for any more conversation on the
subject, he turned away and led them past six more identical sets
of quads to the door at the end of the barracks. He pushed his way
in and held it open.

“Here’s the bathroom. To the left of the
sinks are laundry machines and a locker filled with cleaning
supplies. You and your roommates will be responsible for keeping
this barrack spotless.”

“Great,” Kelly said apprehensively. “So is
this one for the girls or the guys?”

“I’m sorry,” Jones growled, his voice getting
louder. “Perhaps I haven’t spoken clearly. You will all share this
barrack.”

“With only one bathroom?” Kelly sounded
incredulous and unintimidated.

“Yes,” Jones replied curtly. “Sharing
berthing and bathing areas will help us evaluate you.”

“That’s just wrong in every way,” Laura
objected, putting her fists on her hips and donning a defiant
scowl.

“Wrong?” Jones said, enraged. “The survival
of your species, of this very planet, is at stake! The seven groups
of seven who will train here are our only hope. Is it not worth a
bit of suffering so we can prepare you for the single most
important mission your species has ever attempted?”

The veins in his thick neck bulging and his
face red with passion, Jones glared at each of them. Shane cast
nervous glances at his friends. He could tell no one liked the
situation any more than he did, and they seemed weary of the
alien’s constant yelling.

The barracks didn’t look like a haven for
rest, and Shane expected it was part of the plan. Other than the
coed factor, it was a lot like football camp. Coach Rice used to
give lectures to the football team to explain their training. In
one, he mentioned the body and the mind best learned reflexive
action, such as leaping to the side in an instant to avoid a
tackle, when both were completely exhausted. He said this was why
he made them run and lift weights until they nearly dropped and
then had them practice plays on the football field once their eyes
were drooping from fatigue and their arms and legs felt like
jelly.

Shane and Steve were familiar with the
aggressive approach, but he wanted to quit all the time when he
first started. They were going to have to help the others along
until they got used to it.

After impatiently staring at them for a
moment, seeming to give Shane’s now gloomily introspective squad a
chance to ask some final questions, Jones pivoted sharply on his
heel and marched back through the barracks. The seven teens shot
wide-eyed
dude’s crazy
glances at each other, and then
followed him.

“If you need anything, dial one,” he said,
pointing at an old, green, touchtone phone to the right of the
front door. “Each team has a number. From this point on, you will
be referred to by that number. You are Team One.”

“I can live with that,” Steve said cockily.
“I like being number one.”

“It has no reference to your rank as related
to the other teams.” He looked at each of them in turn, his brown
eyes narrow, and his brow wrinkled with intensity. “If you have no
further questions, I will leave you to get situated. We start
training at zero four hundred hours tomorrow. The rest of the
squads will arrive today.” Jones walked, or rather charged, out of
the building, the door slamming behind him.

Shane’s mind was a whirlwind, trying to
process everything he heard and saw since arriving to this hidden
base. His blurry gaze remained locked on the exit until Tracy
cleared her throat. His friends looked just as dazed, but their
attention was on him.

“This ain’t gonna be easy,” Shane said,
breaking their catatonia. “But we can handle it.”

“How’d he know we shut down the limbic
manipulator?” Jules asked, pinching her chin thoughtfully. “An hour
ago, Lily acted like she didn’t know when we told her. Now it’s
common knowledge?”

“Maybe the room where Lily met with us was
being monitored too,” Tracy murmured covertly, glancing up at a
camera in the corner to the left of the door. “They’re probably
studying us already and planning our training.”