The Harvest (26 page)

“You’ll slip out of the programming chamber
through this hatch in the back and make your way to engineering,”
Jones said, pointing at the diagram of a passageway that spiraled
through the interior of the recruit ship to an access hatch near
the center.

“Had we the time to complete your training as
planned,” Lily said, “you would have memorized the access codes and
ejection sequences to be input in the reactor control panel. We
would also have taken you through numerous scenarios so you’d be
ready for almost anything. Unfortunately, that option is no longer
available to us.”

Nervous mumbling erupted. Everything they
were saying was just a recap of what they already knew. They’d been
through a lot of training in the short time they’d been here, had
done a different scenario in simulations each day, and had started
learning the codes. Apparently, their instructors didn’t feel like
that was enough. It didn’t inspire much confidence in Shane and, by
the sound of it, anyone else. He suddenly wondered why they were
even saying this to them. Wouldn’t it be better to just tell them
they were ready and send them onto the field bolstered by
confidence?

“However,” Jones said, loudly enough to
silence the room. “There is a way we can upload the information to
your brains via your earbud. We hesitate to do it because it
requires the temporary activation of your slave genes, and it could
cause injury.”

So here was the catch. They didn’t need to
sell Shane. He’d do anything to increase the likelihood that they
would succeed. His fear of losing Kelly and becoming a slave to the
Anunnaki trumped all. Although he wondered what injury it could
possibly cause that the doctor couldn’t heal.

“As a compromise,” Lily said, “you must
decide if you want us to attempt uploading this information into
your brains.”

“Be warned,” Dr. Blain, who was sitting on
the corner of the stage, said. “The upload could cause permanent
instability in some of you. There is a risk of brain damage and
possibly death.”

Shane glanced at his teammates, then down the
row at Ethan, Liam, Jake, and the rest of the Australians. They all
looked concerned but also had the same so-what-we’ll-take-it
expressions on their faces.

“To be clear, we’ve never done this before,”
Lily added sincerely. It was admirable that they seemed so opposed
to activating the slave gene. These rebels really acted like they
cared about them, and they had since the day that they met.
“Captain Jones and I were soldiers and pilots, not the
neuroscientists the Anunnaki have to program their slaves. We don’t
have the immense power reserves available to use that the recruit
ships’ reactors provide. And though Dr. Blain has studied the
archives on the subject that were salvaged from our ship, this will
be her first attempt at a neural upload.”

After delivering this uninspiring disclaimer,
Lily and her two counterparts gazed at the teens in the room,
perhaps giving them time to contemplate the risks of what they were
proposing. It didn’t sound intimidating to Shane, not when compared
to trying to attack the Anunnaki with the limited training they’d
undergone.

“If it works, this will increase your chances
of success and survival one hundredfold. If you don’t want the
mental upload, leave now,” Jones bellowed less delicately than the
other two. “The loop on the TV in your barracks will be playing a
lesson that will teach you the bare minimum you’ll need to get by.”
He crossed his arms and looked at everyone.

The hangar was dead quiet. Shane swore he
could hear Kelly’s heart beating next to him, even over the
deafening sound of his own. He’d already made his decision—he was
in this to the end. But he couldn’t help wishing Kelly would walk
out. No one moved.

“Very well.” Lily smiled kindly. “Dr. Blain,
please begin.”

“You will be immobilized like in the
simulations.” Dr. Blain held a thin, transparent tablet, tapping
its surface with her free hand. She stopped and looked at them,
that caring, maternal expression on her face that unnerved Shane
each time she had treated his wounds. “I’m sorry, but this may be a
bit painful.”

She tapped the screen. A high-pitched whistle
blasted Shane, and blinding light scorched his eyes. It felt like
it would burn his flesh away, and then, as suddenly as the
whistling began, there was silence. A wall of colors, thousands of
little, flashing squares, swelled up before him and blocked out the
blinding light. The wall curved into a sphere around him. Each of
the tiny squares looked like a scene from a movie.

With an earsplitting screech, the scenes all
pushed in at once, flowing through him in a blur of color. His head
seemed to swell under the pressure. He wanted to scream but felt
disconnected from his body, like he was only a brain afloat in a
storm of memories that didn’t belong to him. So much information
blazed through him, making his brain feel like it was being
poached. The memories forced their way into him, each one becoming
his own. The mission to destroy the reactor repeated hundreds of
times in fast-forward, though he was painfully aware of the
minutest details in each simulation. He saw the reactor control
panel, inputted destruction sequences, and died in a blast in one
scene, then escaped in the next. He fought Anunnaki soldiers with
and without weapons, and saw all his friends die over and over
again.

The mix of pain, fear, and excitement made
him want to curl into a ball and weep. The grief of seeing his
friends die, of seeing Kelly die, was all too real. It intensified
until he expected his head would explode, then everything went dark
and quiet. He heard murmuring and opened his eyes. His blurred
vision slowly cleared. He was sitting in the metal chair next to
Kelly. The teens around him groaned, rubbing their heads. Fading
terror left their faces pale and slack, like they’d all just awoken
from a horrible nightmare.

He felt sharp tingles in his skull, as if the
fires lit by the neural upload had dwindled down to crackling
embers. Glancing around, he moved his arms and legs. He seemed to
have survived without major trauma. Kelly turned and hugged him, a
quiet whimper escaping when he wrapped his arms around her.

“I saw such horrible things,” she
whispered.

“I know,” he said, pulling her tight. Tears
blurred his vision. “Me too.”

“It worked!” Dr. Blain studied images
flashing on her tablet. “And everyone seems to be okay.” She looked
at them with a broad smile on her face that showed she had no idea
how much they’d suffered during the upload.

The painful tingles subsided, and the misery
from seeing Kelly and his friends die in different scenarios lost
some of its grip. A new awareness diffused through him. Along with
the horrible stuff he’d seen, so much amazing knowledge was in his
head. It felt like he’d been training to attack the Anunnaki for a
lifetime. He knew how to beat them, was certain he could succeed.
Confidence flourished in the presence of the knowledge.

Kelly must’ve experienced it too. She
released him and leaned back, drying her eyes with the side of her
finger. Her traumatized expression transformed into a little
smile.

“I think I know karate!” she said.

“And judo,” Liam added.

Shane could sense his intimate knowledge of
those martial arts, and at least five others. They were going to
destroy the Anunnaki ships—he grew more certain of it with each
passing second. Furthermore, he knew he could get his team out
alive. Vindictiveness boiled in him. These bastards killed his aunt
and his father. Now he had what he needed to get even. Glancing at
his counterparts, he sensed they were all thinking the same
thing.

“Because of residual fluctuation in your
serotonin levels, you may experience an elevated mood for a couple
of hours,” Dr. Blain warned.

“Remember,” Jones said with his
drill-sergeant voice. “By destroying the recruit ships, you will
bring us a massive step closer to ensuring the survival of your
species, your brothers and sisters. We hope you live through this
mission, but you must lay down your life if that’s what the
situation demands. Just because we’ve uploaded a bunch of
information into your brains doesn’t mean you are prepared for
every contingency.” He paused, studying them.

“Always the pessimist,” Laura whispered.

“Or simply a realist,” Tracy countered
sternly.

“Trust your instincts in battle,” Jones
bellowed, glaring at the chattering girls to show he’d heard them
and didn’t approve of the interruption. “Do I make myself
clear?”

“Sir, yes sir,” everyone shouted, a level of
respect in their voices that hadn’t been there so many weeks
ago.

They responded in Anunnaki. Shane suddenly
realized they’d been speaking it since coming out of the neural
upload. On top of everything else, they’d been taught to speak the
enemy’s universal tongue. He was pretty sure he could speak a
crap-load of other languages now too. His brain overflowed with new
knowledge, more than he could even begin to comprehend.

Jones’ cautioning words soaked in. Shane was
ready to lay down his life if that was what it took. But he wasn’t
ready to see Kelly die. His surge of confidence was subdued. He
glanced at her, his newly implanted memories conjuring the
white-hot reactor explosion that would vaporize flesh and bone. His
stomach twisted into knots, and bile rose in his throat. He
couldn’t let it happen. He’d die for her in a heartbeat, but he
didn’t want her to die with him.

“Now you all should go enjoy your dinner,”
Lily advised. “I’m proud of what you’ve done here over the last
month. You’ve proven you have what it takes to defeat the Anunnaki.
You already possessed the courage, strength, endurance, and
aggression. And now you have the knowledge.”

“Helicopters will be ready to deliver you
down to an airport at zero two hundred hours. There, you will be
loaded onto military transports and flown to your respective
targets,” Jones growled. “Dismissed.”

The kids didn’t move immediately, all sitting
and looking at each other with stunned expressions. They had been
judged the best hope of stopping the Anunnaki, and their sentence
may well be death. Shane knew he couldn’t keep Kelly from going. He
had to respect her desire to be there for the fight. Standing, he
tried to shove aside his fear for her safety. Kelly and the others
rose next to him.

“We have to stop them, Shane,” she said
firmly. “We have to make sure Nat has a world to grow up in.” Her
expression was resolute, conveying that she’d die a thousand
torturous ways to save her sister.

“Don’t worry.” He scooped her hand into his,
his heart breaking at the thought of her enduring even a scratch.
Forcing a smile, he tried to be encouraging. “We’ve got home-field
advantage. The Anunnaki aren’t going to know what hit them.”

“Let’s try to relax tonight,” Maurice advised
loudly enough for everyone to hear. He glanced at Shane in such a
way that made him wonder if he picked up on his inner turmoil. His
face was leaner and his waist much smaller than it was before. He
looked older and more serious, though he still had that friendly
glimmer in his eyes. “Let’s consider this night a gift and not
squander the time.” He winked at Shane knowingly and offered a
compassionate smile.

A wave of agreement passed through the room.
Different nationalities intermingled with a familiarity and comfort
he couldn’t have imagined on that first sleepless night in the
barracks. For some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t help feeling
wary. Something was off. Hoping he wasn’t experiencing the
instability Dr. Blain warned of, he mimicked the rest of the kids,
who chatted excitedly about all they’d learned. They spilled out of
the hangar as a unified group, the seven teams of seven no longer
distinguishable.

Steve walked next to Anfisa. Their hands
brushed, and Steve smiled timidly at her, red flooding his cheeks.
He looked like a little boy blushing at his first crush. The
overconfident, tough-guy persona he always brandished blasted away
each time she glanced at him.

“Wow,” Shane teased when Steve held the door
open for him. “You’re so whipped.”

He expected the big guy to get embarrassed
and to tell him to shut up. Instead, Steve smiled. “What can I say?
Any woman who can kick my ass is a woman I gotta love.”

Shane laughed. Thank goodness Steve would be
with him on the mission. Not to mention the fight in Atlanta,
they’d gone to battle on the gridiron many times. He knew in the
heat of it that Steve would not back down. He wished Aaron were
here as well. Then they’d be unstoppable for sure.

At dinner, everyone seemed to be making an
effort to follow Maurice’s advice, or they were experiencing the
elevated mood the doctor warned of, Shane couldn’t tell which.
People joked around, and laughter was frequent, though often
restrained and tinged with nervousness.

In a lot of the simulated missions they
endured in the neural upload, the teams were mixed so that kids
from different nationalities fought together. He had this sense
that he’d known many of them for years, though he really didn’t
know much about their lives from before they came here. Even though
they’d spent a month eating, sleeping, and living together, the
training had been too vigorous to allow much time for social
interaction with the foreigners. They talked of the simulations
like they were old times and laughed about the flag-capturing games
and about sparring competitions they had against each other. Petrov
even struck up an unprompted conversation with Shane, who’d been
watching the others off to the side. He spoke of his home back in
Russia, his little sister who was waiting for him there, and his
older brother who had been killed by the limbic manipulator.

Petrov finished abruptly by saying, “You will
have to excuse me.” He walked toward the drink dispenser, grabbing
a napkin on his way and dabbing his eyes. It was such a
rollercoaster of emotion that Shane feared they all might be
experiencing some negative side effects of the upload. What if
their brains fell apart during the mission?