The Spaceship Next Door (34 page)

“Not yet, Sam,” Laura said.

Sam didn’t like the plan, and had said as much more than once.

She can take care of herself
, Ed thought.
For at least a little while longer
.

Violet extended a coaxial cable to Dobbs.

“Can you plug this into the output? I’m going to need to analyze the signal.”

“S…sure. You had a jack for this? That thing doesn’t even have an interface.”

“It does now. I asked it for one.”

“How long?” Ed asked.

“Five minutes, at most. I need to piggyback the signal, but I already know what I’m sending.”

“Ed?” It was Laura. She was looking over the side of camper. “Don’t think we have five minutes.”

“Here comes the Army,” Sam said. “Looks like they’ve decided we’re a threat.”

“Hot damn, I
do
get to shoot somebody,” Oona said.

“
H
ey
!” Annie shouted. The tinny echo came back on her as if to underline how alone she was inside the ship. She was
always
alone, in a manner, because the alien was only as
there
as a computer program or a TV show. He was an idea of a thing instead of a thing, which should have made him less real but somehow didn’t. Somehow it felt like he was much more real than she or anything on the planet was.

Perhaps he was rubbing off on her as much as she was clearly affecting him. His voice had gotten deeper, he started using contractions, and it felt like she was talking to an actual person, right up until he decided he was done with her.

Not that that wasn’t also a very human quality.

“You still need my help,” she said. It probably wasn’t true, and she didn’t even sound convincing to her own ears, but it was worth trying. The only other option was to suffocate.

Unless that’s not the only option
, she thought.

The ship responded to her before. She got a glimpse of the outside, and maybe the alien didn’t even realize that had happened. She was also still carrying the entire operating manual in her head.

Annie started thinking of an idea. It was a simple idea, of a ship with an aperture that pumped air in, and a filter that scrubbed CO2. There wasn’t a lot to it; if she wanted to take the ship into space she’d have to come up with a better idea, but this one would keep her alive for a while.

It worked. There was no telltale hiss and the air quality hadn’t devolved sufficiently for a change to be notable immediately, but she could sense the handoff. The idea had been uploaded in some kind of invisible exchange, and the ship acted. She was going to be okay for a little bit longer.

“Annie.”

“Oh, hi. Where’ve you been?”

“Did you do that?”

“What, turn the air on? Yeah, I didn’t want to die.”

“Not that. The drones are missing.”

“Uh… I don’t really know what that means. You lost contact with them?”

“Based on their feedback, each of them was bodily relocated outside of Sorrow Falls at the speed of light. This is possible for one such as myself, but not for one such as you. They also can’t leave through the shield I’ve placed over the town, so it’s impossible for them to be where I’m told they are. Therefore, they weren’t relocated at all and something else has happened. Did you do this somehow?”

Violet is here.

“No, but that sounds like a cool trick.”

“
I
think it worked
,” Sam said.

The fact of this was self-evident, because the camper stopped rocking and Oona, Sam and Laura weren’t shooting any more. That they had to take any shots at all became necessary once the soldiers tried scaling the sides, something the townsfolk reportedly never tried during an earlier siege.

They were shooting to wound, in theory, but ultimately the goal was to get the zombies off the side of the camper by any means necessary. If an arm or a leg could be disabled, great. More than a couple of times, it was a head or a heart, though, and there wasn’t anyone to blame for that, aside from whatever being was inside the ship with Annie.

“They’re just wandering around,” Laura said.

“This is funny as hell,” Oona said. “Like they all got drunk at the same time.”

Their movements reminded Ed of what someone might look like when missing the bottom step on a staircase. Their feet weren’t finding land where they were expecting to.

“Looks like phase one worked, Violet,” Ed said through the open trap door. “Ready for phase two any time you are.”

A
nnie decided
she wanted to see outside again, so she asked the ship and the ship showed the outside to her. The zombies were still there, but they were acting less zombie-like and more staggeringly drunk-like. She also saw Oona and Laura’s camper and understood exactly what happened.

For some reason, the alien hadn’t figured out his daughter was the only one with the technology to do what they just did, and had been using his zombie network for information for long enough he forgot he could just look out the proverbial window.

“So what’cha doing?” Annie asked.

“I’m performing a diagnostic of the ship’s systems. They’re clearly malfunctioning.”

“Okay. Hey, can I ask you a really dumb question?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you just go out and be a new idea for some other civilization? If what you’re missing is that sense, like you said, of being something new, just go out and be that for someone else. I mean, if you’re right and that’s why Violet came here—and I think you probably are—what do you even need her for? Make your own memories and all that.”

“I am the greatest idea that ever was. There is no civilization prepared to fully grasp all that I am.”

“What happened to the ones that were?”

“They’re gone.”

“But why?”

“Great ideas have many uses.”

“So you’re saying they all destroyed themselves.”

“I’m saying
some
did. Some grew out of a need for me. I’m still a part of them, but a historical part. I continue to exist in the minds of others, but as an idea that no longer provides value and doesn’t change.”

“So you’re kind of a snob, basically.”

“I’m sure I don’t understand.”

“You could involve yourself just like Violet did, but you don’t think we’re worthy of your big, total idea-ness.”

“My offspring didn’t involve herself in the way you describe. She isn’t an idea that exists within this civilization. If she were, I’d have found her immediately instead of having to engage in this puppet show. She remains a self-contained idea, engaging ones such as yourself for reasons I won’t fully appreciate until I have her back and can ask.”

“I don’t know.”

The alien sighed. The emotion of exasperation was a new one for him. Annie was definitely having an impact, because she heard this tone from every adult in her life at one time or another.

“What is it you don’t know, Annie?”

“I don’t know how great an idea you actually are.”

“…I would cause your mind to explode.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not.”

“Look, you already dropped the ship’s entire design into my head, and that included a ton of things nobody with my kind of brain ever experienced. That didn’t wreck me.”

“You didn’t understand what you were shown.”

“Dim the lights.”

The blue lights dimmed slightly.

“That is unremarkable.”

“Fine. Give me a second.”

Mariachi music began to play inside the ship.

“What is that sound?” the alien asked.

“When I was ten my dad took me to a Mexican restaurant in Athol for my birthday. This is the song they played for me. It’s kind of repetitive; I don’t remember the whole thing, so it’s on a loop. I can also turn off the defensive shield from here, I’m pretty sure. And a few minutes ago I thought about what the government archives for this machine must look like, and the ship dropped a bunch of emails into my head. So maybe it’s just that I carried Violet around, or maybe the human mind is a little more advanced than you think.”

“…All right. But why would I do this?”

“I don’t know, you seem lonely. I mean, we’ve only just met, but if I were an idea too and I were hanging out wherever ideas hang out, I’d say you need to get out there and introduce yourself to new species. Change things up.”

“This is a preposterous conversation.”

“I have a lot of those.”

“…Even assuming you survived, you wouldn’t know what to do with me.”

“Why would I have to
do
anything? Ideas can just be ideas sometimes, right? Look, you don’t have anything to lose. In a couple of minutes you’re going to go back to the whole
kill all the people
thing you’ve got going on, so I’ll end up dead either way. I’d rather go by way of the greatest idea ever. I mean, if you aren’t exaggerating.”

He fell silent, which she took to mean he was thinking but could also have meant his ship diagnostic was finished and he’d managed to overcome the distractions Annie kept throwing at him for long enough to notice that Violet was sitting in a camper a fifty yards away.

“All right,” he said.

The gentle blue of the interior brightened, and then crawled inside of her, or so it seemed. She was being pulled away from reality, down Alice’s rabbit hole, up the tornado spout and into Oz.

Ideas already in her head connected with other ideas already in her head, establishing relationships with one another she couldn’t believe she’d never seen before. These weren’t strictly her own ideas. They were things she’d picked up from books, and movies, and school, and Violet. They were ideas other people had that she’d taken and made a part of her. They fit perfectly, and then started to connect to other things: things she’d never known before, that nobody on the planet had ever known before.

There was a vast network of interconnected ideas in her mind, Einstein’s grand theory of everything multiplied by ten, laid out across extra dimensions. It was beautiful, and very nearly too much to bear.

Then came the idea.

He was right. It was the greatest idea she could have imagined.

She thought maybe her mind really was going to explode.

T
he President
of the United States was in the second year of his first term when an extraterrestrial vehicle landed in Massachusetts and changed the world.

It made for pretty good politics.

There were a lot of complications, certainly. The riots were bad. International politics got about ten times weirder. Suicide rates were alarmingly high. But at the same time, a smart politician could capitalize on the upside of being in charge when the world changed, while suffering from almost none of the customary downside.

There was no alien invasion, no need to develop some kind space armada—as if that was even an option—and no cities were destroyed. No ultimatums were issued or negotiations brokered with alien generals. Essentially none of the options from any work of fiction on the subject ever came up.

Instead, strategies were debated and official plans drawn up within the government, while outside, in the declassified world, the president ran for re-election with the pedigree of a wartime commander-in-chief, only without the body count.

The whole time he was busy being A Leader, effectively Handling The Situation just like his campaign strategists said, there was the nagging thought in the back of his mind:
what if I actually have to make a decision here?

He knew the doomsday scenarios. He signed off on them. But by the third year, with the ship still showing no signal of intent, he figured he was in the clear. Maybe the worst-outcome plans they’d drawn up would get used one day, but it would be a day long after he left office, and a decision made by someone else.

The ship was not so kind.

In front of him was an executive order. It had been drafted over a year ago and left unsigned in a folder kept in a locked safe somewhere in the White House. He didn’t even know precisely where that safe was, and made a note to ask his chief of staff later. (It was a strange thing to think, but it had been a strange night.)

He was at the head of a table in the harshly labeled ‘war room’ of the building. It was a surprisingly pedestrian room: no polished oak tables or any of that. Half the chairs were of the folding variety. It was not a room meant to impress like the Oval Office was, because nobody who required impressing was allowed into the war room.

About the only cool thing about it was the monitors on one wall, which carried all kinds of interesting satellite feeds depending on the crisis.

At this moment, the screens were dark, and the president was alone. He’d already received the formal briefing, which included a long list of the world and national leaders who signed off on the decision he would be making as soon as he put his signature on the bottom of the order. He wished some of those leaders were in the room and literally standing behind him, telling him that what he was about to do was the correct decision.

He picked up the pen, and hoped to God it was.

The phone began to ring.

It was a conference room speakerphone. It sat in the middle of the table, looking somewhat flying-saucer-like. There was only one button on it. Hitting the button opened a line to the switchboard, and the White House switchboard could place a call from there to any place in the world.

It wasn’t the sort of phone line people called into.

He pushed the button.

“Um… hello?”

Mr. President! Hi, I’m glad I caught you.”

It was a woman’s voice, but he didn’t recognize it.

“Is this the switchboard? Whom am I talking to?”

“It’s Annie. Annie Collins. We met once, but I’m sure you don’t remember. I’m calling from Sorrow Falls.”

“Miss, I don’t know how you got this number, but you’re going to be in a great deal of trouble.”

“I
know
, it was tough! The ship was already jacked into the White House Wi-Fi, but it took, like
forever
to find a port to a video feed, and then it turns out you’re in a room without security cameras. Figures. Anyway, had to try a few numbers.”

“What
ship
are you talking about, Ms. Collins?”

It was a prank. Clearly. The worst timed prank in the world.

“Look, I don’t have a lot of time. After I hang up with you I want to call my mom, I know she’s probably flipping out, but I figured I’d better get you first. Before you nuke the town.”

“How could you… Who are you, again?”

“Annie. Like I said, the ship was already hooked up to the White House. It has the Pentagon too. Has everywhere, actually. It’s how it was learning about us. Advance probe and all that.”

“The spaceship, you mean.”

“Yeah, that ship. So the nuke isn’t a big secret. But look, it’s not going to work.”

“I’ve heard a lot of expert opinion that thinks otherwise.”

“Sure. Okay, so, first problem. You guys use GPS satellite targeting, right?”

“I think we do. Ms. Collins, how old are you?”

“I’m sixteen, but I don’t think that’s relevant right now. Hang on, I’m gonna conference in Steve from the Pentagon.”

Steven Prentiss was a three-star general. Exactly two people in the world called him Steve: the president, and Mrs. Prentiss.

One of the screens on the wall blinked to life. It was a wide-angle shot of Massachusetts.
Wide
meaning it was far enough up that it was difficult to tell where the state was except for the Cape Cod hook on the right. A pinpoint dot generated by the satellite delivering the image identified Sorrow Falls, in the northwestern part of the state.

“Mr. President, you asked for the satellite imaging?” Steve said. It was definitely Steve’s voice. “Did you wish to watch?”

“I haven’t signed the order yet, Steve. Stand by. Ms. Collins, can you tell me why I’m looking at this?”

“Can you zoom in?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, who is this?” Steve asked. “I thought…”

“Humor me, Steve,” the president said. “Go ahead and zoom.”

The world on the screen got bigger. The president had seen satellites zoom in for close-ups a hundred times and it never failed to disorient him. He always felt like he was falling.

“How long shall we do this, Ms. Collins?” he asked.

“Keep on going… okay, stop. See that light?”

In the dead center of the image was a bright light, but the focus was insufficient to identify the source.

“I do.”

“All right, try and get a closer look of that.”

“Mr. President?” the general on the phone asked.

“Go ahead.”

The image zoomed some more. It was—of course—a shot from directly overhead. He wished he could get side angles, but there was only so much a sub-orbital satellite could do. As it got closer, the light split into dozens of smaller lights. It was a parking lot shaped like a digital zero.

“Gentlemen, that is the Oakdale Mall. Your precise GPS coordinates are targeting the wrong town.”

“Steve?”

“Mr. President, I don’t know what to say… We’re comparing this to still images of the area… I think she’s right.”

“Are you doing this, Ms. Collins?”

“Me? No, not me personally.”

“Seems you’ve hacked the war room
and
the Pentagon in the past few minutes. It strikes me as a reasonable question.”

“Mr. President, who is this person? Is she not in the room with you?”

“According to her, she’s a sixteen year old calling us from Sorrow Falls. So Ms. Collins, the targeting package is off, we can adjust that.”

“It’ll miss in every direction. Right now, Sorrow Falls doesn’t exist according to any of your satellites. You’ll keep hitting the wrong town. But that’s only the first problem.”

“Did you say she’s sixteen?” Steve asked.

“Go on, tell me what the second problem is.”

“So you’re probably thinking, well, Annie, it’s a nuclear bomb. We can miss left or right and still take out the target.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking, yes.”

“The bomb won’t work on the ship. Now, it’s true the amount of energy coming out of one of those is too much for the shield to straight-up absorb like it did with the other things you dropped earlier, but whatever it can’t absorb it’ll just reflect outward. Basically, you hit it with a bomb and you’ll destroy New England. And the ship will still be here.”

“Miss, how could you possibly know this?” Steve asked.

“I’m in the ship, general. It’s a really super long story, and I don’t have time to tell you the whole thing right now. I’d like to call my mother, then I’m going to take down the shield, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t destroy the entire East Coast while I was doing that. Everything’ll be okay, guys, I promise. You can stand down. What
would
be great is if you guys can figure out how to feed about five thousand ex-zombies who are gonna wake up super hungry. No brains, just pizza or something.”

“I’m sorry,” the president said, “did you say zombies?”

T
he invisible shield
over Sorrow Falls came down at oh-three-thirty, but the army didn’t realize this until oh-four-hundred, as the problem with invisible shields is that it’s difficult to tell when they aren’t there any more.

There were multiple entry points to the town, but only a few that could accommodate heavy artillery. After an aerial review—via helicopter, at a distance—of the bridges leading to Main, it was determined that the best route to take was from the west, down Spaceship Road. This plan also satisfied members of the Army Corps of Engineers involved in the planning and execution of the project that widened and paved Spaceship Road specifically for the purpose of supporting an invading force.

The reason the bridges were considered bad options was the traffic clogging them, and the assumption that there were people in those cars. In a worst-case scenario sort of situation, the army might still consider pushing the cars off one of the bridges or simply driving over them with tanks, but this was a less-than-ideal solution, for a number of reasons. One was that commuter bridges were more or less designed to prevent cars from simply tipping over the sides. Another was that as much as tanks were designed to climb over cars, that sort of thing could take forever, and leave a crushed obstacle in its wake, rendering the bridge even less passable for all the non-tank vehicles.

Spaceship Road also had a lot of cars on it, but there was no precipitous drop on either side, and not even a shoulder to bar cars from drifting off. This opened up a range of possibilities for clearing the road. The choice the army went with was to ask the occupants of the cars to kindly get the hell out of the way immediately.

It was an effective approach, involving the least amount of property damage, but it also took a terribly long time, because the line of cars was thirty deep, taking up both travel lanes, and everyone was facing outbound.

At oh-four-thirty, the general in charge of the invading force tasked Major Sharon Price with the responsibility of entering town ahead of the rest of the army in order to scout the terrain.

Major Price grabbed the nearest Jeep and a driver for that Jeep, took it off-road around the traffic jam, and became the first non-resident to enter Sorrow Falls since the ship self-activated.

She and her driver—a corporal named Wentz—headed straight for the spaceship, past what looked like an utterly ruined army base. A number of observations were reported up the chain-of-command immediately, including the discovery that everyone in the town was either dead on the side of the road or sleeping on the side of the road. This was not strictly an either/or, although it was interpreted as such by the higher-ups initially, which was why the first news reports that morning announced incorrectly that the entire town was dead.

Travel past the very edge of the town was slow, because not all of the people dead/sleeping were on the
side
of the road. Quite a few were in the middle of it. Since a couple were actively snoring, Price and Wentz agreed that the best recourse was to evade them as much as was possible, and try to figure out later why so many were napping on the median strip.

The only place Price discovered people both alive and conscious was around the ship. There, she met Corporals Corning and Louboutin, the only two unaffected army soldiers from the base, and a handful of civilians, all of whom later became famous in their own way for having survived the night.

None of them was Annie Collins.

When the military was ordered to the scene, it was with two mandates: secure the ship, and take Annie Collins into custody. Sharon Price had no idea who Ms. Collins was or why she might warrant such particular concern, but orders were orders.

By oh-five-fifteen, Price had notified the trailing force that the town of Sorrow Falls was no longer in immediate danger, and urged the general to exercise caution, as there were private citizens and army officers sleeping out in the open.

This point had to be repeated several times.

Price also declared the ship to be secured, or at least as secured as it had been the day before it came to life.

At oh-five-twenty-two, the side of the ship opened, and a sixteen-year old girl in muddy clothing emerged from a blue-tinted interior. Price and Wentz drew their weapons and ordered the survivors to step back. This order was roundly ignored.

The girl was Annie Collins, and Price finally understood her orders.

According to most accounts, the first thing Annie said—after the hugs she received from essentially everyone in the clearing that wasn’t Price or Wentz—was:

“Step back.”

This was excellent advice, because at oh-five-twenty-nine, the Sorrow Falls spaceship roared to life, lifted off the ground, and after hovering seven feet above the earth for several seconds, shot straight up and into space.

Step back
was not actually the first thing Annie said, however. The first thing she said was addressed specifically to Major Price and Corporal Wentz. It was: “I thought I ordered pizza.”