The Harvest (24 page)

“And you need to play and have fun,” Kelly
said, sounding upbeat. “You’re kids after all, right? So try to be
kids.”

“Are you going to put the aliens in jail?”
Sara asked, looking at Shane with wide eyes.

“Yes.” He suppressed a chuckle. “Something
like that.”

“I wanna help.” James, the bold little boy
he’d rescued behind the grocery store in Leeville, said. “I’m
strong.” He pulled the sleeve of his T-shirt up and flexed the
muscle in his arm while giving Shane a very serious look.

“You know what?” Shane replied, trying to
keep as solemn an expression as the little boy wore. “You are
strong.” He looked at the rest of the kids. “You’re all strong. But
we need you to go to school so you can learn everything you need to
know. Then you can help.”

He hoped he and the others would be able to
eliminate the Anunnaki threat before James was old enough to fight.
Surveying their young faces, he succumbed to the fear that the
fighting might go on for much longer than he expected.

James studied him, seeming to contemplate
what he’d said. Shane kept his look firm, not breaking his eyes
from the boy’s. After a moment, James nodded as if they’d made a
deal. The other kids seemed happy with this answer too, returning
their attention to their food and each other. Shane sighed and
looked down at Nat. She gazed back up at him, still holding onto
his arm.

“Will you come and eat with me tomorrow?” she
asked with her sweetest voice, no sign of the outburst she’d just
had. It amazed him how the kids could switch emotional gears so
fast.

“Of course, and every day after that if you
want me to,” Shane replied, smiling.

Apparently satisfied, she released him and
climbed back onto her stool. Kelly smiled and winked, a sign that
she thought he’d done well. Shane raised his eyebrows and tilted
his head, asking for permission to slip away. She nodded, and he
made his escape, relieved.

A week later, Shane came out of the shower
and heard girls shouting in the barracks. He recognized Tracy’s
voice and rushed to see what was up.

“Your mom moved to Leeville just so she could
stalk my dad,” Tracy yelled, glaring at Laura. “What kind of a
psycho slut does that?”

“What did you call my mom?” Laura screamed.
She charged Tracy, murderous intent glowing in her eyes.

Shane got there just in time. He leapt out
and caught Laura in his arms, holding her back.

“Your dad led her on!” Laura screamed. She
twisted in his grip, trying to break free so she could attack. When
she couldn’t get out of his grasp, she continued to spit venom. “My
mom had no idea that lying, cheating, sack of shit was married.
Maybe your mom was batting for the other team like you, and he
wasn’t getting any at home.”

Tracy pulled her fist back and moved in to
hammer Laura’s face. Maurice was there in an instant, grabbing her
around the waist and pulling her in the opposite direction. Shane
glanced over at Jules, worried she might try to step in. Jules was
wide-eyed, standing back with a worried look on her face. But she
seemed to know this wasn’t her fight, and she was smart enough to
stay out of it.

“Now listen, both of you,” Maurice boomed in
a voice that sounded custom made for the pulpit. “We are all
brothers and sisters here. The crimes of our parents belong to
them, not to us.”

“Her mom ruined my life,” Tracy snarled, only
sounding a little deflated by Maurice’s words. Shane knew she loved
and admired her stepdad, and learning he’d been cheating on her mom
must’ve cut her to the bone. No wonder she’d been so cold to Laura
from the start.

“She ruined your life?” Laura pressed against
Shane’s arm again, trying to break free. “I was pulled out of my
school, had to leave all my friends behind, and had to move to Hick
Town because your stupid dad couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

“If it weren’t for these other people,”
Maurice boomed, stopping Tracy from responding, “which is what your
mom and dad are, just other people—then y’all would have no cause
to dislike one another. Don’t let this come between you. As much as
it hurts, those folks are gone. We’re the only family that matters
now. All we have is each other.”

Other than the moment of doubt he shared with
Shane in the cafeteria just after Lily had met with them the first
time, Maurice had continued his pious behavior. He spent what
little free time he had in the base chapel. Jones and some of the
others even started referring to him as the chaplain, a title he
didn’t object to. Shane was sure glad he was there to talk these
girls down; he wouldn’t have known where to start.

The girls glared at each other a moment
longer, seeming to try to come up with more insults to cast since
Maurice and Shane wouldn’t let them go at it. Maurice’s words
seemed to sink into them at the same time. Their shoulders drooped,
as if accepting that they didn’t need to be at each other’s throats
for what their parents had done was a great burden.

Once he was certain it was safe to let her
go, Shane released Laura and slipped away to his side of the
barracks, watching and ready to charge back in if it got heated
again. Maurice talked with them in hushed tones. Just after the
lights went out, they hugged, Laura in tears.

“You have
fifteen minutes to get to the training hangar,” Jones shouted,
rousing Shane from a dead sleep. “Up and out, people!”

Groaning, he rolled onto the floor and raced
to the bathroom, bumping into his barrack mates along the way. He’d
grown so accustomed to being woken up abruptly—he hardly had to
think about his hurried routine. Within the time allotted by the
growling and barking captain, all forty-nine kids made it to the
training hangar and were seated in their metals chairs. It was
still dark out and Shane had a feeling it was only around midnight,
though time had become immaterial to him.

“This simulation will feel more realistic
than the others you have experienced,” Jones began, marching back
and forth across the stage with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Seven of you are going to experience what it would be like to have
the enemy find you out and turn upon you. The rest of you will play
the role of the attacking Anunnaki.”

Chatter passed through the room.

“And,” Jones said, loud enough to silence
them, “we are activating an injury simulation program for this
scenario. That means you will feel the shot from the plasma rifle
if you are hit. This will help you grow acquainted with how your
armor’s first aid system responds to injury. If you are delivered a
lethal blow, you will be pulled out of the simulation.”

Shane looked left and right at his friends,
confident they could handle whatever Jones threw at them.

“Another little twist for this game,” Jones
said, sounding a bit mischievous. “We are making a mixed team for
the human defenders, so you may have to fight alongside people
you’ve never fought with before.”

Jones paused, gazing across the room.

“You will be in full armor. We’ll keep the
members of the human team’s identity secret from everyone else so
there’s no hesitating during the fight. However, the team who will
act as the humans will have a moment alone in the simulation before
the attack begins, so you’ll have a chance to get acquainted.”

The buzzing came in Shane’s ears, and then
the flash of light. When his senses returned, he was standing in a
tunnel in red armor with the Shock Troop symbol on his chest. He
and six other teenagers who had their helmets under their arms
gathered at a hatch he recognized as one of the entrances to the
reactor chamber.

“I guess we’re the humans,” Anfisa said.

“And I’m betting we’ll be surprised at how
many guns we see pointed at us when we open this hatch,” Ethan
observed.

He was a shorter, dark-skinned kid from the
Australian team who Jake said was part aborigine. Originally, Shane
had thought that Liam was the leader of the Aussies, but over the
last few weeks, he’d seen that Ethan, who was typically quiet and
always friendly, actually made most of the decisions.

Steve and Jules were also on the mash-up
team, along with Petrov and Jake. It struck Shane as interesting
that Jones had only selected people from the top three teams, those
who’d gotten used to dominating the leaderboard. Knowing the
whooping that would likely occur when they opened the hatch, he
reckoned they were about to share a slice of humble pie.

Shane hesitated. They had three obvious
leaders, and he wasn’t sure if he should try to take charge.
Everyone else seemed to be thinking the same thing, glancing from
him to Ethan to Anfisa.

“Once we get in there, I’m guessing Jones has
it set up so we won’t even get to the reactor control panel,” Shane
said, taking the ball to see what happened. “He wouldn’t make it
that easy for us.”

“He never does,” Anfisa seconded. “He
probably expects us to die as soon as we open this hatch.”

“So what’s our goal?” Steve asked.

“We still have to get to the control panel
and press the button,” Shane said. “That part is obvious.”

They hadn’t learned the complete sequence of
codes to put into the control panel to destroy the reactor, so
Jones placed a big, red button on the panel and they had to push it
to simulate completing that portion of the mission.

“So we charge in with guns blazing,” Ethan
said coolly. “We hit the control panel and keep going to the other
side of the reactor compartment.”

“They’ll expect us to turn around and fight
our way back to this hatch,” Anfisa joined in excitedly, apparently
getting his plan before the rest of them did.

“Exactly,” Ethan replied. “I’m betting they
won’t be crowded around the main entry hatch on the opposite side.
No one would try escaping that way because it leads through the
command center of the ship.”

“So we hit the control panel and get to the
other side without stopping,” Shane said. “Then we seal the hatch
and wait for the reactor to blow.”

“Well,” Jules said, rubbing her chin. “It
ain’t perfect, but I don’t think there’s a better plan.”

Shane glanced around at everyone, making sure
no one else had anything to add.

“Then let’s do this,” he said, “before they
have more time to plan their defense.”

They all nodded and made sounds of agreement.
After putting his helmet on, he turned and raised his hand to the
red button that would open the hatch. It wouldn’t be there during
the real mission either. All the ships hatches had special codes.
During the evenings when they had a few minutes to study, he’d been
struggling to learn them with limited success.

He pressed the button, and the door slid
aside. As soon as the opening was wide enough, Steve pushed ahead
of him, ever the linebacker ready to protect his quarterback.

Shane leapt through after his friend, rolling
forward as he entered the reactor chamber. The discharge of plasma
rifles sounded all around him. Shane kept firing his weapon as he
came to his feet.

“Go, go, go!” Ethan shouted.

The mash-up team charged across the reactor
chamber, firing their weapons in every direction as they ran. The
task seemed hopeless. The reactor compartment was filled with the
other kids, who were also in red armor and stationed around the
core. Forty-two opponents didn’t seem all that bad until they were
pointing guns at him. Some even stood on platforms higher in the
chamber, raining plasma bolts down from above.

He realized it would have been better not to
start shooting right away, because it appeared the defenders didn’t
know which hatch they’d come through. They’d attracted a firestorm
of plasma blasts. One burned through Steve’s leg and he fell,
screaming, to the ground. A moment later, he grew quiet and started
firing his gun again, the armor having administered pain medication
to keep him going.

“Go,” Steve shouted, when Shane slowed to
help him. “I’ll cover you.”

A blast hit the floor near his feet,
encouraging him to continue toward the reactor controls at full
speed.

Shane fired his weapon and saw the blast burn
holes through a female who was shooting at him just ahead. His
heart stopped in his chest when he saw her drop, hoping he hadn’t
just shot Kelly. Then again, Jones said if they were killed in this
simulation, they’d simply be pulled out of the game. The pain Steve
expressed when he got shot sounded much worse than what his victim
seemed to experience in sudden death.

He made it to the control panel with Petrov,
Ethan, and Anfisa. Hitting the red button, he glanced back to see
if any of their teammates were coming behind them. Steve was still
on the floor, hiding behind a tool cart and using the
sharp-shooting skills he’d honed from years of hunting to hold off
the horde of teenagers trying to close in on him. They were
gathering between the mash-up team and the exit. On the floor
between Steve and Shane lay the rest of their teammates, all
ejected from the game by mortal wounds.