* * * * *
On his console, Parker accessed the heart of Project Harvest and was scrolling through the files on the different stages of the hybrid program. When explosions in the elevator shook the entire structure, Barnes said, “That was fast, they probably left Luma and Zalas behind.”
“Black will kill us all,” Parker scoffed while trying to locate the recovered alien on the internal schematics.
“After the Marines break in, we’ll lead them forward,” Dekker planned. “When it’s clear, go upstairs and get Luma and Zalas, then take the elevator to the surface.”
“Here are the initial scans. It’s a heat-signature resonance.”
The structure of the second sub‑level was drastically different from the first, with computer labs surrounding a control station that recorded the data from Project Harvest. At the far end was a forked hallway that led to military barracks converted into holding cells for the volunteers. In that area, the sensors registered a clear diagram of what appeared to be five hominids moving around a larger mass. The other path led to the Containment Wing for the alien specimen, where outlines were overlapping.
“Close the outer doors to the barracks,” Barnes suggested. “There are what, a dozen volunteers and six hybrids?”
Parker nodded and tried to gain access. “What do you think they’re doing?”
“It looks like they’re feeding,” April observed.
“On what, the scientists?” Parker kept getting error messages on his console. “I can’t control anything in that section.”
“Then we’ll have to shut the doors manually,” Dekker concluded.
“The rest of the psychotic volunteers must be hiding,” said Parker. “Let’s see what’s going on near the alien containment chamber.” He pulled up more detailed scans that showed a group surrounded by four shadows.
April pointed to the huddled people. “Are these the captive scientists?”
“Look at who’s guarding them,” Parker noticed. “Their temperatures are ten degrees below human.”
“It’s the hybrids,” said Barnes. “Only four are still alive. They must be protecting the scientists from the volunteers.”
“Where’s the bastard that started all this?” she asked. “Where’s Horatio Somers?”
“Colonel Black will get through the elevator doors soon,” Dekker told Parker. “Be sure to scan the first sub‑level before you get Luma and Zalas.”
* * * * *
Barnes held his SMG ready and looked across the computer lab. The command center for the operation was full of self‑regulating systems alight with rolling timers to filter air and water. The control panel by the elevator sparked as the Marines cut through barriers created by engineers to avoid contamination at the surface.
April followed Dekker with her own weapon along the outer wall. When they reached the fork in the hallway, she asked, “Where are the other volunteers?”
He nodded to the Containment Wing. “Waiting in the vents...”
They passed a corridor leading to a mess hall for the resident scientists. At the reinforced barracks, the polished white tiles were covered in scratch marks. Grooves along the floor were wet with streams of blood, and snapping sounds were audible from a recent attack that had achieved a hearty meal. The cannibal feast was almost too much for April to bear as Barnes tried to override the lock.
Among the muffled whimpers of a woman being eaten alive, the greyskins were at different stages of genetic regression. Some were almost unrecognizable as human, with giant hands stabilizing them on all fours. After Dekker finished re-calibrating the security clearance and the entrance was sliding shut, the volunteers searched for the source of the disturbance. Two made it out, but the third was caught in the doorway. As it began tearing itself apart to get free, the others stood tall with their mouths hanging open. The smooth skin of the hairless men appeared to be made of wax, and they were salivating at the sight of April before she blasted off pieces of their rotting bodies. Barnes immobilized them with shots to their kneecaps.
The elevator screeched open, so Dekker and April hurried down the second hallway near liquid suspension chambers, where a row of dead aliens were kept beside the remains of those recovered in 1947.
* * * * *
Parker examined the scans of the first sub-level until the sound of the elevator being wrenched open broke his concentration. He peeked from the mainframe room and saw the Marines exit the shaft with burning flares. He went back to his console and saw two distinct signatures traversing the air-ducts above the Mammalian Wing near Luma and Zalas.
* * * * *
Dekker stepped through a precautionary decontamination room made for scientists in oxygen suits and entered the lab with April. They recognized the hybrids immediately, because unlike the volunteers, they were more alien than human. With longer limbs and enlarged skull cases to handle evolved sense organs, their faces were drawn taut without expression. Apparently their communication was transferred by different means than speech.
April looked to the scientists cowering in the corner and said, “We’re here to help.”
In a chamber against the wall, a small alien was floating in a liquid prison with constant readings recorded by attached mechanisms. A technician stood beside it, holding a pistol. The name on his lab coat read Horatio Somers.
“Let me out,” his voice echoed from the back of his throat. Horatio seemed to be looking at nothing particular, but the weightless creature was focused on the newcomers.
April turned to Barnes. “What is it?”
“Doctor Somers is being manipulated,” he replied. “The alien is talking through him.”
* * * * *
Parker rode the elevator to the first sub-level, shaking as he held his SMG. Luckily the red-spotted predators did not leave enough of the gutted herbivore behind to be scavenged, even if loud calls from the territorial reptiles could be heard in the distance. He quietly entered the Mammalian Wing and stepped over Amanda’s body in the hall. At the data storage room, he called for Luma to open the door.
Zalas was sitting at the terminal. “Are we leaving now?”
“Soon,” said Parker. “I need to use your console.”
“Are you ready?” Dekker asked through his comm-piece. “I need you to access the second sub-level in the Alien Containment Wing.”
“I told you, that section has been locked down. I’m with Luma and Zalas now.”
“It was only locked because Horatio Somers was under psionic control by the captive alien. He was used like a puppet to override the system, but he couldn’t gain access to the containment chamber with the lockdown initiated by his security breach. Somers was forced against his will to open the cages and throw this place into chaos until the alien could devise another way out.”
* * * * *
Colonel Black reached the hallway to the Containment Wing and gave his men a silent gesture to follow. When they came to the dead aliens from previous UFO crashes, all kept in a dense preservative liquid, he put his hand against the warm glass.
“Colonel?” Tacitus said before the aliens opened their big black eyes.
* * * * *
Black felt helpless as he was pulled from tepid water by giant rubber hands. Blinded by his surroundings, he tried to breathe and realized that his skin opened with tiny holes to pull in oxygen. He was lowered onto a table by gentle fingers and felt the icy sting of instruments placed upon his delicate flesh. The Colonel closed his eyes with the weight of the experience. When he opened them again, there were encouraging voices as his feet touched the ground. He was wrapped in a warm cloth and looked into the nurturing faces of scientists in lab coats.
Lucius Black was reminded of his birthdays as a child, and the feeling of group acceptance filled him with a sense of loyalty. The machines recording his life signs went on alert when the roll of his heartbeat bec
ame rapid. He was picked up and placed on a blanket, where comforting eyes looked over him with such mercy as to cause him pain. He was suddenly in a room full of mirrors, with reflections of himself staring at the extra-terrestrial floating in the containment chamber.
The creature’s head pulsed while it connected to its offspring, leaving them frozen from the influence of their imprisoned ancestor. The psychic union flooded them with memories of their homeworld and industrialized space stations orbiting encapsulated biospheres. Unfortunately the alien failed to connect with its clones in a meaningful way. From an evolution adapted to space, without war and illness, it was no longer capable of intimate social bonds.
The hybrids turned away from the psionic cajoling of the small stranger and gravitated to the compassion of the humans. Colonel Black saw the dejection of the alien as it was abandoned, and after the scientists were brought for their final analysis, they were told that it was nothing but an object for the government to dispose of. Horatio Somers had a weary mind, so the alien took a hold of him immediately.
As emergency lockdown procedures started, the hybrids wandered from their rooms in the half-light of regulated sleep to find the scientists fighting off cannibalistic volunteers who were dragging them back to the barracks as food.
* * * * *
“Colonel?” Tacitus prodded, since their leader seemed to be transfixed by the dead aliens. Black removed his hand from the liquid chamber.
Calvin pointed to the roof, and when the Colonel saw the ceiling bend, he continued to the end of the corridor with his Marines close behind. In the Containment Room, Dekker and April were standing with four hybrids protecting the frightened scientists. Horatio looked to the floating alien as if expecting to be told what to do.
Black leaned against the wall with his face flushed from exertion. The thoughts of the hybrids were flooding him with the realization that they were somehow his children. With his recent vision, the information was too much to handle.
“What are your orders?” Tacitus asked when the Colonel set his rifle on the table and drew his handgun. The hybrids were staring at him with their large eyes and he couldn’t escape the influence of their emotions.
“They stole my blood,” Black concluded, realizing how his country had betrayed him. It was originally a relief to have been cut from a testing program that eventually drove the volunteers to madness, but he never thought that the government would use his genetics and the violation stood before him as children torn from his flesh. The Colonel cocked his pistol, put the barrel under his chin, and pulled the trigger.
With the sudden violence of his death, the volunteers arrived in a frenzy from the ventilation system. As they were climbing across the walls, Horatio went pale and raised his gun at the invaders. The Marines reacted out of fear and opened fire, cutting him down. Calvin was grabbed from above and his errant bullets sprayed the room, puncturing the equipment and knocking Tacitus off his feet. When he stood up, struggling to breathe beneath his damaged body armor, he saw that Aros had been hit by a ricochet with a bleeding hole in his neck.
* * * * *
“Are you ready?” Parker asked. Luma and Zalas held their firearms confidently. “The Marines cleared the path, so I set the elevator to open on a timer.”
As they were running for the exit, two volunteers dropped from the vents and crashed onto the computers in the central workstation. The first scrambled from the clutter and attacked Zalas. While it was trying to bite his face like a rabid dog, Parker emptied his clip into its head. Luma reached the elevator with the other cannibal close behind, but the reptilian pack-hunters followed the noise and tackled him to the floor. After Parker reached the elevator with Zalas, Luma triggered the doors to close.
* * * * *
The liquid rushed from the containment chamber and April detached the alien from the machines that were keeping it weak. As she wrapped it in a lab coat and held it like a child in her arms, Barnes told the scientists to get ready.
“I can’t let you leave.” Tacitus was holding his broken ribs by the bodies of his fellow Marines. “Our orders were to eradicate all possible threats and maintain the information.”
“The data has already been sent to the surface,” Dekker told him. “Your mission was successful.”
Tacitus went for his rifle, so Barnes shot him in the leg. He turned to the hybrids and hoped that they understood his intentions. They nodded without a word and began rounding up the scientists with gentle hands.
* * * * *
The volunteers were fighting over Calvin’s body in the computer lab. Following a flash-grenade that rolled across the floor and exploded, Dekker ran into the open to clear the way. As April led them forward, the hybrids kept a protective circle around the scientists to hold back the mindless cannibals. They seemed proud to sacrifice their lives for the scientists they considered to be their parents. Barnes covered the survivors until they reached the elevator, then they lifted past the first sub‑level towards the surface.
* * * * *
Parker, Luma, and Zalas safely reached the hangar, but they were immediately corralled by soldiers. A skeleton crew was working in the mountain base, consisting of maintenance personnel and engineers. As security tightened around the possible hazard, the nervous MPs tried to contain the situation while keeping their distance, unwilling to engage contingencies of the government without authorization. One of them retrieved their commanding officer, who came to them carrying a portable console.
The exhausted fellow had his shirt rolled up at the sleeves. “These are the programmers I spoke to at the debriefing.” Zalas and Parker nodded to the technician. “You’ve been uploading data streams from each terminal to me directly. The encrypted information has been sent by armed guards to its new home.” He opened his console on the table. “Most of the animals will be rounded up and sent to other enclosures to be studied.”
Luma frowned. “Alive?”
“Of course, some of these creatures can be passed off as mutations, but they will never be viewed by civilians. Our government has become more amenable to people who pose a national security risk than they were during the Cold War, but I wouldn’t push it.” The technician rubbed the hair on his chin and checked his equipment until particles were analyzed for airborne pathogens. He visibly relaxed. “Where’s Colonel Black? We lost communication before –”
The elevator opened again and relieved scientists spilled out. Dekker and April trailed them to keep the alien hidden. “What are we going to do?” she whispered, fixing the bundled lab coat in her arms.
Barnes led her beyond the fringe of the group. “We need to get outside.”
“Thanks for your help,” Parker told him with respect, and Luma reacted to the small hand grasping the fabric of April’s shirt like a toddler. The technician was immediately drawn to what she was holding.
He was perplexed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Dekker backed away with April towards the far side of the hangar. “You received your information. The mission I signed up for is complete.”
“We can’t just let you leave...”
When the security officers raised their rifles, Barnes showed his pistol and implied a threat. “Tell the General that we’re dead.”
To avoid an immediate bloodbath and possible danger to their scientists, the technician nodded for them to attempt the absurd. “Have fun with the Mojave desert. You won’t get far before the helicopters find you.”
Barnes looked to Parker and Luma. “Thanks for your help as well.”
He walked with April to the lift and they were raised to the upper level of the hangar. Near a covered aircraft in the shape of a saucer, numerous containers had the letters ‘EG&G’ printed on them.
“Now that I haven’t seen,” said Dekker, who went to the docking controls and started typing. April coddled the alien and found herself gently rocking as if
it were a newborn. After the wheezing hatch finally opened, they walked into the desert and saw the light of dusk circling the horizon. Behind them, the hangar was perfectly disguised as a mountain with bay doors painted and textured like sand.
They watched the stars. Against the limitless sparkling reflections, one was growing closer. The object descended and hovered briefly before a flashing light splashed from the belly of the spacecraft and pulled their consciousness apart.
* * * * *
They traveled with a rush along the edge of space, taking a journey of thousands of years to be shown the future of the Earth. A last drop made their stomachs rise as they were pulled high above the atmosphere. Time shifted and brought an altered fate from the one known to humans after they left the chaos of their mother. As the ruins of civilization crumbled, the planet adored her children, but the land was left barren by her sacrifice to raise one species above the rest. Nothing could reverse the extinction event that homosapiens had created, and the momentum of destruction seemed to rival the capacity of nature to lay waste to life without conscious compassion.
A blank slate had been left behind by the second nomadic era of humanity, this time traveling into outer-space. After they adapted, they returned to their birthplace and found a virgin territory where decayed cities had been swallowed up. The Sun lit the frontier landscape and ruled the structure of providence for survival. Since the variables were normal, the logistics were only a matter of time.
There was no discernible selfish reason for the work of the evolved humans who returned to aid in the planet’s environmental rebirth, and the process of re-habitation was necessarily imperfect as they worked with attentive care to stabilize new species in their infancy. Mankind had previously overrun the balance and became disconnected with their home, but in the far future, with their help the Earth was returned to her natural state.