CHAPTER 15
Grayson followed Aries to his office and set the case and asteroid on his desk.
“Glad to see you didn’t come back empty-handed, but before we talk about that, tell me more about the trouble you encountered,” Aries demanded, leading Grayson to launch into a recounting of Hassan and his kidnapping of Leila, followed by the shootout in the storm.
At the end of Grayson’s tale, Aries sighed. “I’ll have to apologize to Leila. I didn’t realize she might be in danger if she left Tower.”
“Honestly, it was just a stroke of ill luck that we ran into the man. At least he won’t be able to cause any more problems.”
“And despite that setback, you successfully completed your mission.”
Grayson nodded. “Leila got a bunch of samples from the lake.”
“And you found the asteroid.”
“Don’t get too excited yet. We’ve yet to confirm it’s the right one,” Grayson cautioned. “Leila wants to run some tests on it.”
“Hopefully, we have answers soon. While we seem to have eradicated the aliens in eleven of the meteor-landing locations, Toronto is a whole other story. We’re still running into issues, despite the fact we’ve been killing and torching all traces of the creatures.
” Aries rubbed his face. “I swear, given how they keep popping up, I’m beginning to think there’s a factory somewhere churning them out. ”
“How do you know there isn’t? As we’ve discovered, it takes only a single small chunk to grow another. Could be the aliens are tearing off pieces and leaving them behind before going on their rampages.”
The theory had Aries grimacing. “Fuck me. If that’s the case, if they are intentionally replicating, that speaks to organization, which seems at odds with what I’ve encountered. Looking those aliens in the eye, I didn’t see any signs of intelligence, just rabid fury.”
“Every species has the instinct to reproduce.”
“Agreed, but I don’t know any who reproduce just to create cannon fodder.”
“Could be we’ve been fighting foot soldiers.”
Aries frowned. “Meaning?”
“Maybe the aliens are organized like a bee or ant colony, with a queen directing all the drones or something along those lines.”
The statement had Aries rubbing his chin.
“An interesting theory, but also a concerning one, as we’ve not caught sign of a possible queen or commander.
Then again, colonies tend to protect their leaders.
A more evolved or intelligent version of the aliens hiding in the background might explain their advanced tech.
It’s been discovered that their weapons, while being of alien design, were built using parts originating on Earth. ”
“Now I’m the one who’s confused.”
“The materials used to build those energy blasters came from here. The metal, wiring, even the power source, which is some kind of advanced battery utilizing hydrogen, all from Earth.”
“How are they building them, though?” Grayson couldn’t help but frown. “Did they take over some factory without anyone knowing?”
“It appears they’re being custom-made with repurposed items. The two energy weapons recovered from the arena, while functioning in an identical manner, are comprised of different scavenged parts.
The designs have the scientists studying them in a frenzy since the technology is beyond what they’ve yet achieved. ”
“It makes you wonder what else they can create. I thought I heard mention of them sending nanobots?”
“Yes. Nasty suckers, capable of taking over people’s bodies with the single purpose of easing the arrival of those they call master. At least we discovered intense electrical charges can disable them.”
“Tasered someone, did you?”
Aries lips twitched. “Actually, the nanobot we recovered had been zapped by lightning. Taurus caught one when confronting one of the nanobot-infected. In good news, they are unable to control warriors. In the bad, thus far, we have no idea how to detect them, meaning if there are some floating around, leeching off a person, we might never know.”
“That’s kind of concerning. What if someone like the president or a highly ranked military official got controlled?” Hadn’t Grayson once seen a movie with that premise that ended in nukes?
“It is something to keep in mind, but assuming we destroyed all the ones currently available, then we can only hope the aliens won’t have the proper tools to create new ones.”
“Here’s to hoping the smart aliens don’t take over a high-tech computer lab.”
A remark that made Aries grimace. “We’d be in serious trouble if they did. This situation has too many unknowns, and I don’t like it. Usually, Sage can see a problem coming and we move to counter it, but this… She can only see some of the aftereffects.”
“Such as?”
Aries tucked his hands behind his back and looked out the window as he said in a low monotone, “She’s seen a future where cities have been demolished and humans live like vermin in the rubble.
Humans enslaved, despondent, huddled en masse in enclosures.
Bodies littering the streets and fields.
In that future, there is nowhere safe on the planet. ”
A chilling prediction. “But we can change that, right? This isn’t a case of a future set in stone?”
“Visions provide a glimpse into what could happen, thus giving us a chance to change a course or eliminate a threat. The problem is, while the four-armed aliens we’ve been fighting are a clear and present danger, if they are being controlled, as well as manufactured, then the fight won’t end until we eliminate the entities behind them. ”
“Where are the monsters in Toronto coming from? They’re obviously not waltzing out of neighborhood homes or warehouses.”
“The sewers and subway lines appear to be how they’re moving about unseen.
From what we’ve been able to gather, at the hockey game you were playing in, they entered into the parking garage via a sluice grate.
While we did descend to see if we could track them back to their lair, we found ourselves stymied by the tightness of some tunnels.
Several of your brother warriors have remained in the city, seeing if they can sniff out the alien base of operations before the next wave hits.
” Spoken as if it were a certainty rather than a possibility.
“How long do you think it will be?”
“Guess it depends on how quickly they replicate. We don’t yet know how long it takes for them to get from tiny piece to full size, but I imagine it’s closely related to their access to the proper nutrients required to grow.
The ones we battled in the arena weren’t the biggest, likely due to the sewer pipe constraints.
We’ve run into some much larger and also some that are smaller.
Now that the element of surprise is gone, I have a feeling we’ll be dealing with more sizeable threats. ”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because they’ve gotten brazen about snatching people with no care if they’re seen. Popping the lids off sewer grates and literally grabbing victims by the ankles and dragging them underground.”
“Did no one notice people missing before that?”
“Not really. The aliens went after the homeless first, and no one noticed because there’s always been issues keeping track of their numbers due to their transient nature.
What should have set off alarms was the diminishing number of rats and feral cats.
But again, no one actually keeps count. It just so happens a rag of a newspaper pointed out that certain neighborhoods had seen a decrease in vermin and that the local animal shelters had seen a drastic drop in people dropping off captured felines.
Now that those have run scarce, the aliens are resorting to more drastic and public measures to feed themselves. ”
“If they’re in the sewers, does that mean if this lake water actually is poison, we could flood the tunnels to kill them?”
“Most likely. The biggest issue will be creating or importing enough of the fluid to actually reach all the corners they might be hiding in. Not to mention we’ll have to find a way to shut down the subways for a few days so we don’t cause any civilian casualties.”
“What about the tunnel dwellers? We’ll have to warn them, too.”
“Not an issue since they were taken first,” Aries stated, and Grayson could have smacked himself. Like, duh, it should have been obvious.
“Is it wise to even have the subways running, given they’re in the tunnels?”
“No, but I don’t have a contact with the local transit authority. I fear it will take a large-scale massacre before they’d even contemplate shutting down the underground trains.”
“Not being able to speak to those in charge directly seems back-ass backwards. How can you protect people if you can’t even warn them?”
“By doing so in different subtle manners. Aquarius has been planting memes and posting on various social media sites, pretending to be someone living in Toronto, who’s seen the monsters firsthand, telling them to stay away from any kind of holes in the ground lest the aliens get them.”
“The latter seems like a good idea, especially if he is using many bot accounts to spread and share the message, but I have to ask, why memes? How are jokes supposed to help?”
“Let me show you.” Aries had a tablet on his desk, and he swiped his finger across it a few times before flipping it around. “Scroll left.”
The first image showed an alien being lit up by a flamethrower saying, The only way to kill monsters. The next, a cartoon of someone sitting by their toilet with a shotgun captioned, Ready to fire a load. Another of a house on fire saying, I saw an alien. I think it’s gone now.
“I’m surprised at the one advocating shooting them. Won’t that create chunks that will turn into new aliens?”
“Yes, however, Toronto has a hotline to report any sightings and attacks. Those tips will allow either the warriors or the military to move in and cleanse the mess.”
“The military knows to torch them?”
Aries nodded. “Once I informed my inside man, he got those studying the aliens to realize they could regenerate unless burned to ash.”
“Given the military has more soldiers than we have warriors, why not tell your inside guy to have them sweep the sewers?” Grayson kind of felt like an ass telling Aries how to do his job, but the man seemed interested in hearing what he had to say.
“Already been tried, and it didn’t go well.” Aries grimaced. “They entered a narrow tunnel that forced them to move single file. The aliens must have been tracking them because they swarmed, front and back, and took them out one by one.”
“None of them thought to shoot?”
“Would you shoot if your friend or work partner was in front of you?” Aries countered.
“Guess that means no soldiers in the sewers anymore.”
“No. According to my contact, they’re arguing over what to do next, with some wanting to gas the whole system, which would be dangerous for civilians, while others want to bomb it, which would lead to major infrastructure issues.”
“I think the inability to flush a toilet isn’t as bad as aliens popping out to eat your face,” was his dry reply.
“Because you’re thinking in the short term. Less-than-sanitary situations lead to disease that can run rampant. You’d be trading one kind of death for another.”
“You know, when you first told me I’d be a warrior fighting evil in the world, I imagined being sent to the woods to hack some kind of rampaging animal to death. I’m realizing it’s a lot more complex than that.”
“To be fair, usually it is as simple as you stated. This situation is unlike anything we’ve ever encountered, which is why any leverage we can achieve is important.
With that said, you should get the water and asteroid to Leila so she can get to work on them.
Once you drop them off, head to the training room. Time for your next lesson.”
Guess spending time with Leila would have to wait. Bummer.