Alien Collective (26 page)

“O
KAY, WELL,
killing us is certainly today’s plan.”

“Who the hell has a combine harvester out here?” Tim asked, sounding as freaked out as I was pretty sure the rest of us felt. “Is Old Macdonald living on the other side of these hills?”

“There are facilities in the mountains,” Reader said, “but none of them are related to farming, storing farm equipment, or hoarding javelinas.”

“Why a combine harvester, for God’s sake?” Tim wasn’t giving this one up. “Won’t something that big sink in this stuff, too?”

“Yeah, but the blade is gigantic enough that it might not sink in. And even if it did sink, it would just make the rest of us sink faster.” Mostly because it would likely be on top of us, slicing our heads off or dicing us up while shoving us under with no hope of getting out.

“This was planned out,” Chuckie said, voice taut. “I’m sure the only thing not going according to plan is that Vander and Serene are still alive and not caught in this with us. So, glad you sent them back, Kitty.”

“I wish I’d sent all of us back.”

“I still can’t get free of this stuff,” Christopher said. “So if the Poof and the shooting scared off whoever’s doing this, either they just moved where we can’t see them, or their work here is done.”

“That’s it,” Jeff said, as he reached over and grabbed the back of my jeans. Mahin was close enough on his other side that he could grab her with his other hand.

“Jeff, don’t! It’ll shove you under!”

“I don’t care,” he said calmly. “But I refuse to let my wife and the other non-warrior woman under my protection die, especially not in the way our enemies have planned.”

With that he pulled. Hard.

Jeff was big and brawny, and while he wasn’t bodybuilder muscled, he was definitely Greek God muscled. I could see his biceps bulging as he strained against the quicksand. But the quicksand didn’t have that special Surcenthumain boost.

For a moment I was really sure my clothes were merely going to come off in his hands, but Levi’s were made tough. And apparently, Armani was as well, because Jeff grunted and then, with a sound that was reminiscent of the biggest, sloppiest slurp in the world, Mahin and I flew out of the quicksand.

Practice meant I was able to land in a roll and jump to my feet. Mahin didn’t land as smoothly, but she wasn’t hurt. I pulled her to her feet and spun around, to see the rest of our team now sucked down a whole lot more.

Reader, Tim, and Christopher were in the quicksand up to their chests. The princesses, Gower, White, Buchanan and Chuckie were in quicksand to their waists. The animals were all down, most of the javelinas and Peregrines barely keeping heads above the surface, and Tito and Jeff, because he’d done the pulling effort for me and Mahin, were in the quicksand up to their armpits.

Which, in a way, was good. Because that was the last little thing required to flip me into the level of blinding rage I needed. Even with the fact that everyone had their hands in the air and were essentially waving them like they just didn’t care, I wasn’t able to focus on much other than the fact that my husband, friends, pets, and other helpless animals were all going to smother soon.

We couldn’t risk getting near the quicksand, because if the sandshifter could grab the Peregrines, he could also grab me and Mahin again.

“Mahin, get onto that rock with Harlie. I have no idea what to tell you to do, but have the vibrations slowed down enough that you can do something?”

“Not really,” she said. “Kitty, have you noticed that there’s nothing on us, or on Harlie? None of that stuck to us, which is technically impossible.”

Looked down. Sure enough, there was nothing on us. We weren’t even damp. Come to think of it, the quicksand hadn’t felt damp, or icky, or even grainy. It had felt smooth.

“Tell Chuckie about this. Keep them occupied and not moving. See if Harlie can calm down the other animals somehow.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

Pulled my iPod out, put my earbuds in, and hit play. “What I always do. Improvising and going with the crazy.”

As I took off for the combine “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” from Pink came on. Great, it was a good song, good beat, angry lyrics. Just hoped it wasn’t Algar being prophetic and telling me I’d never see Jeff alive again.

When I was this enraged, the skills flowed perfectly. I was as good a fighter as Rahmi and Rhee, as fast as Christopher, and almost as strong as Jeff. So I reached the combine in a matter of moments.

The two guys from the dune buggy were driving it, which figured. On the plus side, this hopefully meant there weren’t a million more people with dangerous farm equipment on their way.

It was a John Deere combine, and it was gigantic, with nasty blades on a very wide track—if it reached my friends and family stuck in the quicksand, it would only need one pass to turn them all into mincemeat.

Ran around the blades and jumped onto the side. The driver and his passenger were inside a glass-enclosed cabin. Grabbed onto one of the side-view mirrors and part of the roof and swung my lower body forward and kicked the glass as hard as I could. It cracked, and I kept on. It broke soon enough.

Swung again and kicked the passenger in the head, which knocked him into the driver. This caused the combine to swerve, or really, since this wasn’t the most nimble of vehicles, to slowly change course.

Now I swung into the cab. I was moving so fast that I was able to grab the passenger and slam him back against the cab a couple of times until he was obviously unconscious.

Unfortunately, the driver was still driving and he started hitting at me. I hit back. I also grabbed the wheel and cranked it hard to the left, to hopefully pull the combine off course even more.

I was winning this particular battle until someone else joined the party. Two someones. Siler and some guy I’d never seen before both jumped in. Once inside the now very crowded cabin, Siler hit the other guy with a sucker punch, grabbed me around the waist, and yanked me out. We fell onto the ground, and he rolled us away from the combine. We ended up several yards away, with me on my stomach, him on top of me.

“I’m really going to kill you, you jerk!”

Siler pulled out one of my earbuds. “Glad you’re making it look good,” he said quietly in my ear. “But I don’t think we’re being observed anymore.”

“What the hell—”

I’d have asked him what he meant and what was going on, but the combine exploded.

S
ILER GOT OFF OF ME,
and I scrambled to my feet. He was nowhere I could see, but I couldn’t take the time to look around much, since I had to run away from the explosion and flying metal.

Having run track all through high school and college, I’d learned to never look behind me when running like crazy. Sprinters who look behind them lose the race, so I went by the philosophy that what was behind me didn’t matter. The few times I’d broken that rule had only proven why the rule was a good one.

So I didn’t look back, I just ran like crazy away from the combine. Stopped when I reached the base of the northern mountains and turned around. Parts were still flying through the air, but none were going to have a shot of coming near me—I was far away from where I’d started.

Fortunately, the combine had been in the middle of Groom Lake when it exploded, so the others weren’t at risk of being hit with debris, either.

The combine being blown up was great, in that it couldn’t kill everyone. But Jeff and the animals were still close to suffocating in the weird quicksand, and I couldn’t see anything clearly from all the way across the salt flat.

However, what I could see was that nothing and no one was coming out of Home Base. Considering we’d already had two big explosions, Christopher had gone to get binoculars and supposedly put them on alert only a few minutes ago, and considering there had been a stampede, a dune buggy, and a combine cruising around in a highly restricted area, by now someone at Home Base should have been taking an interest.

Figured this meant that we were indeed infiltrated in some way. Meaning no help could be expected from anyone there. As I contemplated my next move beyond running back and trying to pull everyone out at once—which I had to admit was going to be impossible—I shoved my other earbud back in and the music changed. “Firestarter” from The Prodigy hit my personal airwaves. Chose to take this as a suggestion from Algar.

Parts of the combine were burning. So there was fire. Maybe fire would destroy the weird quicksand that wasn’t real quicksand. Worth a try.

However, how to get the fire over was the question. My brain nudged—the same people who’d just blown up in the combine had been driving a dune buggy earlier. So, where was it? And what else would I find if I found that vehicle?

Reader had mentioned facilities in the mountains. I actually knew where those were. Not because I’d memorized Home Base’s layout and surrounding areas or anything responsible like that, but because Jeff and I had snuck off there to be alone in the early days of our relationship. There was a road that led into them, and that same road also connected to the smaller road that went over a pass between the mountains, the road the dune buggy had herded the javelinas through.

Took off running, but I didn’t bother with the roads. I was going so fast that going up the small mountain was no big deal.

Crested the top and sure enough, there was the dune buggy. I was faster than it, though, so that wasn’t what I wanted. Searched the area.

There were no people in evidence, and it wasn’t a hard area to search, considering it consisted of four stationary satellite dishes and a couple of small bunkers. One of which was marked as Supplies. Wrenched the door open to see a nice selection of weapons including a flamethrower. Grabbed it, then wrenched the door of the other bunker open. It still held a fully functioning radio transmitter setup. Might be useful later.

Put the flamethrower on, then took off, back down the mountain and across the Lake. Took the time to run around the remains of the combine. Saw people parts within the wreckage and decided a full examination could wait for later.

Arrived as the music changed to “Let’s All Go (To The Fire Dances)” by Killing Joke. Clearly fire or similar was going to do something positive. Or else Algar just wanted to watch the world burn.

Thankfully, everyone’s heads—persons and animals—were still above the surface. In fact, most of them hadn’t gone down too much lower than when I’d left. Other than Jeff. He was up to his neck and his arms were under as well. Good or bad, the rage left me in a whoosh, to be replaced with fear. This wasn’t a good change.

“How goes the offensive, Missus Martini?” White asked calmly. Focused on the fact that he was calm and tried to relax somewhat.

“I think Animal Man and the sandshifter, along with their driver, are dead. Pretty positive Home Base is infiltrated or in some kind of other trouble we’re going to hate. What’s going on over here?”

“Mahin’s keeping us up,” Chuckie said. “Don’t distract her.”

“Jeff, are you okay? Why are you lower down than when I left?”

“Chuck and I figured out how to keep the animals all up. It moved me lower. I’m fine.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not. I’ll ask you about the exploding tractor later. Why do you have a flamethrower, baby?”

“Um, I think I can burn everyone out.”

“Are you serious?” Tim asked. “You’re going to save us by flambéing us? That’s your plan?”

Couldn’t tell them why I thought this was the right thing to do. Not only could I not mention Algar, but no one was going to be excited that I was taking direction from my iPod. “Um . . .”

“It’s not real quicksand,” Mahin said through gritted teeth. Everyone looked surprised, so I figured Mahin hadn’t mentioned it earlier. Decided I’d berate her for not following orders later. Like when we were all still alive later.

“Right! It’s not. It didn’t stick to me, Mahin, or Harlie, and real quicksand would. I think it’s got whatever the Poof Traps were made out of in it.”

“How?” White asked.

“Siler helped the sandshifter to seed the area we were standing in, that’s my only guess.” Wasn’t sure if I should mention that Siler had been the one to blow up the combine, with the three people who’d attacked us inside. As with berating Mahin, maybe later. There was something else I needed to think about. One word. How.

“So you think burning it will work?” Gower asked. “How?”

This wasn’t the “how” I was hoping to concentrate on. How did the combine get here? Felt sure that if Olga were here, she’d be confirming that this was the question.

“No,” Chuckie said thoughtfully, “it could work. It might make it more liquid, both the sand and whatever the element or elements in it that make up the Poof Traps. Serene’s team did a lot of research on those—extreme heat affected it. It’s going to be tight, though, Kitty. The difference between warm enough and boiling is slight.”

“But no pressure!”

“We are willing to be the first,” Rahmi said. Rhee nodded.

“I don’t think I can get to you two easily, because of the Peregrines. In fact, the only one who isn’t blocked by a lot of animals and is also near the edge of the quicksand patch is Mister White.”

“No way,” Christopher said. “You’re not using that near my dad.”

White shrugged. “I’m in the best position, son. It will be fine. I’m willing, Missus Martini.”

“Do you have any idea how to use that thing?” Tito asked.

“Um . . .” Before I could share that I had no actual clue, my music switched to, of all things, “Cool, Cool Water” by The Beach Boys. At the same time, the air near me shimmered.

“Who’s coming?” Christopher asked. “No one’s advised any of us that they’re sending help.”

Realized how everything had shown up here when, by all rights, Home Base should have spotted everything—javelina herd, dune buggy, and combine—and removed them well before we’d ever known of their existence.

“The bad guys are using gates somehow. I’ve seen shimmering around the areas where the dune buggy and combine have shown up.” And around where I thought Siler and the sandshifter had gone. But they’d come back, because the combine had blown up with the guy I assumed was the sandshifter in it well after I’d seen that particular shimmering.

“That’s impossible,” Reader said.

“Nothing’s impossible,” Buchanan said.

“Especially because the technology has been here for decades,” Chuckie added.

Turned toward the shimmering floater gate. “Please let this be help. Or else I’m going to use the flamethrower for something other than getting all of you out.”