The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 63

  "Stop it! Don't hurt me!"

  "Then tell me the truth, motherfucker!"

  "I made them a deal!" he shouted, eyes wild. His chest rose and fell. His breath smelled like Cheese Nips.

  "What were the terms?"

  "A simple exchange: my citizenship for your slavery."

  29

  Ness screamed. The alien lunged forward, limbs lost in the snarl of branches. A tentacle wrapped around his mouth and squeezed. Others grabbed his torso and lifted him from the ground. Something slithered into his pocket, groping. He struggled to free his nose. The tentacle smelled brackish, wormy.

  The alien set him down, jarring his knees. The tentacle uncoiled from his mouth. He gasped for air. A pincer stabbed at his face. Between its claws, Ness' round metal luck charm winked in the wintry light.

  Another pincer produced a compact black pad. One of its tentacles executed a complicated dance above it, tip snapping. It lifted the pad, which was inscribed with a single white word:

  "WHERE"

  Ness fainted.

  It shook him awake, thrust the pad back in his face. Its tentacles squeezed the breath from his limbs.

  "Hanford!" he squeaked. "Washington State. I don't know!"

  It spun one pincer in a tight circle, then performed another tentacle-dance. The text on the pad shifted: "WRITE"

  It let him go and jabbed a stick at him. Ness gaped. He pointed at the stick. Impossibly, the alien nodded.

  He reached for the stick, hand shaking so hard he nearly dropped it. After a glance at the alien's goggle-eyed face, he lowered himself to a crouch and wrote in the dirt: "Hanford, Washington, USA."

  It shook its bulbous head, flailed the metal charm, and refreshed the pad. "WHERE WHERE WHERE"

  Ness pointed downriver, then wrote in the dirt. "I got it from the man who runs the power plant."

  "AND FROM WHERE"

  Ness frowned, swept the ground clear, and wrote again. "Where did he get it?"

  The alien nodded so hard he thought its eyes would roll loose like misaimed cue balls. It squiggled its tentacle, shifting the white text on the black pad. "YES FROM WHERE"

  "Why?"

  It stiffened its spindly limbs, looming above him, hideous and great. "GUTBROTHERS"

  A headache thundered over Ness' thoughts. What the hell did that mean? He pointed at the metal charm in its claw.

  "YES GUTBROTHERS"

  Heart beating so hard he thought it might break his own ribs, Ness bent to the dirt. Drawing each line and loop with careful precision, he wrote: "Your gutbrothers were killed by a man named Daniel and his assistant Roan."

  The alien's limbs shook like a storm-tossed tree. Ness fell back, shielding his head. It shoved the pad in his face. "HERE TOMORROW"

  "Me?"

  "YES HERE TOMORROW"

  Hesitantly, Ness nodded. The alien whirled and trampled through the brush, fallen apple leaves speared on its pointed feet. Ness crouched there, glancing around for others. When he could no longer hear the alien's thrashing, he dashed to the truck, slammed the door, and peeled out for home.

  He replayed the conversation over and over. It had been so quick. So—alien. Minutes later, he could no longer be certain he understood a word it had said. Typed. Whatever. In the moment, it had made its own peculiar sense, but now it felt as foreign as the logic of a lost dream.

  He pulled up to the northern gate, sure the guards would be able to see it on his face, to somehow smell it on him, but they buzzed him through without a second glance. He parked the truck and headed to his room to think.

  The metal trinket came from the aliens he and Shawn had killed. It could be an ID chip of some kind, a radio or a tracking device. It might have taken the others this long to hone in on it, or perhaps they'd been waiting for it to emerge from the compound at Hanford. Whatever the case, they had found it.

  And Ness had pointed them straight to his enemies.

  He couldn't be certain, of course, they were here for revenge. They were squibbly aliens, after all. He couldn't be sure they knew what revenge was. But he'd find out soon enough. He wouldn't miss tomorrow's meeting for the world.

  He drove back to the orchard under the glare of the mid-morning sun. He passed Roan on the way; she turned to watch him go by, her face as inscrutable as a trout's. Ness pretended not to see her. Miles upriver, he parked beneath the apple trees and wandered around. Perhaps it had been waiting for him, perhaps his timing was just good, but the alien crackled from the trees not ten minutes later.

  "Hello," Ness scratched in the dirt.

  It snatched him up, coiled him close, carried him to the river, and strode into the water.

  He screamed, managed to snatch a panic-shortened breath just as the icy water closed over his head. Bubbles swirled past his face, troubled by the creature's thrashing limbs. Something gleamed in the murky water. The alien's legs left the rocky bottom and it propelled itself along instead, tentacles whipping spirals of bubbles behind them. Ness' lungs burned. The alien hauled him into a cave. Ness blew the air from his mouth, trying to trick his lungs into holding on just a few seconds longer. Machines whirred. The water flushed away, gurgling madly, draining through the slotted floor. Ness panted and shivered. Dusty-tasting water spattered away from his soaked clothes.

  "What are you doing?" he shouted. The alien trundled forward without a sign it had heard. It took him through a tight tunnel to an open room with a curved ceiling. Four other aliens were ensconced in alcoves along the wall, like wasps in their comb, waving their tentacles as Ness' captor carried him into the room. It waved back and set him down. The floor was rubbery and spongy and squeaky with water.

  It got out its pad, flicked its tentacle above it. "TELL"

  Ness gestured at the floor and spread his hands helplessly. Semitransparent lids flickered over the alien's eyes. It turned to one of the others, tentacles gesturing violently. The other gestured back with equal fervor, disgorged itself from its hole in the wall with a quiet slurp, and disappeared down the tunnel. Water dripped from Ness' clothes and was absorbed by the floor.

  The second creature returned with a notepad and a Bic pen.

  "TELL," the first alien wrote on its pad.

  "Tell what?" he wrote back.

  "TAKERS OF GUTBROTHERS"

  "Daniel and Roan," Ness wrote. "The ones who run the nuclear power plant."

  The alien snatched the notepad away and held it to the others to read. They whipped and writhed their tentacles at each other for some time. After a consensus had been reached, the alien gestured over its black pad.

  "THANK YOU"

  Ness laughed and gestured for his notepad. "That's it?"

  "WHAT"

  "That's all you wanted to ask me?"

  "YES THANK YOU"

  He knit his brow. "Well, what are you going to do now?"

  The alien danced its tentacle over the pad. "KILL"

  Ness backed away, face contorted in horror. The alien wagged its head back and forth. "KILL DANIEL ROAN"

  "When?" Ness wrote.

  "NO"

  "What do you mean?"

  "NO"

  He rubbed his temple, staring at the googly-eyed thing. He bent over his notepad. "Can I ask you something else?"

  "YES ASK," it wrote back.

  "Why did you kill us all?"

  It twirled a pincer in a quick circle. "NO DANIEL ROAN"

  Ness shook his head and tried again. "Why did you send the disease? Why did you attack us? Why did you come here?"

  It straightened, clacking several of its claws rapidly. Ness cringed. It turned to the others and wiggled its tentacles. Their conversation lasted even longer than the first time. The wiggles and whips of their limbs were far too fast for his eyes too follow. More often than not, they weren't even looking at each other as they "spoke." Were they somehow feeling each other's movements? Reading the vibration or displacement of air the same way the pad translated the wormlike movements of their limbs into English?

&
nbsp; The first alien shoved its pad in his face. "TAKE"

  Ness squinted at it, then reached for its pad. The alien pulled it away and moved a claw in a broad sweep, shaking the pad again: "TAKE"

  "Yes, to take the planet," Ness scribbled, "but why?"

  "WASTE"

  "I don't understand."

  "YOU WASTE PLANET"

  "Pollution?" Ness wrote. "We were going to destroy the Earth, so you took it away?"

  It shook its fat head in exaggerated sweeps, claws clicking rapidly. "INEFFICIENT WASTE PARTS DESERVE EFFICIENT"

  He held out his palms, wrote, "I don't understand."

  "INEFFICIENT WASTE DIRT AIR WATER"

  "We were ruining it?"

  The alien jounced up and down. "NO NO NO WASTE WRONG USE"

  Ness pushed the knuckle of his thumb against the bridge of his nose. "We were using the dirt wrong."

  "YES"

  "How should we have been using it?"

  "RIGHT"

  "How right?"

  "WHAT"

  "How were we supposed to be using it?"

  "RIGHT"

  Ness laughed in frustration too deep for words. Or gestures. Or any other known form of communication. Here he was not five feet from the answers to everything that had happened in the last year—probably the only human to have ever been faced with this opportunity—and they were locked in a Who's On First routine. It was enough to make him want to cry. Or shoot something. Or shoot something while crying.

  "What is the right way to use our dirt?" he wrote.

  The alien paused, gazing at its pad, a few of its claws twirling in what Ness was beginning to suspect meant frustration. "AS THE DIRT WANTS"

  "How does the dirt want to be used?"

  Its claws snapped back and forth. It calmed itself, squiggled its tentacle above the pad. "HARD TALK" It erased that and made a new series of gestures. "AND WATER"

  "We were using our water wrong, too?"

  "YES AND WE WANT"

  "You wanted our water?" Ness wrote. "The universe is full of water!"

  "HARD WATER BAD WATER"

  "Hard water? You blew us up because melting Titan's ice was too much work?"

  It began to gesture, but the tentacles of the ones in the wall cut it off. A minute later, it turned back to Ness. "GO"

  "Now?"

  "GO" It tucked the pad into a pouch in its strappy clothes, grabbed him up, and scuttled down the hall.

  "Hang on a damn minute!" Ness said. It hurried down the tunnel to the room with the grated floor. The door hissed closed. Cold river water flooded the chamber. Ness breathed hard as it climbed to his shins, his thighs, his belly. His clothes hadn't even begun to dry. The water rose to his chin. Outer doors whirred; water clapped into the room, filling it. Once the surging tide calmed, the alien swam forward, using its tentacles as rotors, and struck straight for the surface. Ness' head broke the surface. He gasped.

  It delivered him to the shore and got out the pad, which showed no sign of being harmed by its trip through the water. "GO"

  Ness yanked up a cattail and drew in the mud. "My brother and I are prisoners at the power plant."

  "YOU ARE HERE"

  "But I have to go back," he wrote. "Can you help us get out?"

  "NO"

  "Why not?"

  "NOT GUTBROTHER"

  "But I told you what happened to your gutbrothers."

  The alien paused, pincers tracing slow circles. "TOMORROW"

  "Hot date with a prawn?" Ness said out loud. He wrote in the mud, "Why tomorrow?"

  "FOR THINK"

  The creature whirled and delved into the river. Bubbles popped in the swirling current. Water dripped from Ness' clothes. He peeled off his coat and shirt and wrung them out. The rest would have to wait till he was home. His shoes squelched on the walk to the truck. He shivered hard. On the drive back, the vapor from his clothes humidified the cab; he swept his sleeve across the fogging windshield, smearing it halfway clear. He parked in the car lot and went to turn in the key.

  "Why are you wet?"

  He startled. Roan faced him, the fuzzy flaps of a bomber jacket raised around her neck and chin. Ness glanced down at his damp jeans, as if just noticing.

  "I was climbing a tree to get a better look at things," he said. "I fell in the river."

  "You've spent enough time out there."

  Heat prickled Ness' neck. "But I haven't even been to half the orchards."

  "We won't have the manpower to get to them for years," Roan said. "By then they'll be completely changed. You're wasting time."

  He stared at her, lungs stinging, wanting to shout it wasn't fair. But fair meant nothing to her. His mind shifted gears, clicking from itchy panic into cold analysis. Roan cared about order, efficiency. Ness scrambled for the right lie.

  "Some of the orchards are on lower ground than others. They can be irrigated easily. If this can be done in time for summer, it would only take a handful of workers at a satellite farm to produce enough apples to generate hundreds or even thousands of gallons of fuel. Far more than if those same workers were helping to grow corn."

  Her gaze was as steady as the southwest wind that had him shivering in his clothes. "I need reports."

  "Of course."

  "And a proposal. You have two weeks to find your location. If it takes longer than that, it can wait till next year."

  "Thank you, sir," Ness said. She strode away. He turned in his car keys and went to his room. Only then did he grin. After years of lying to Shawn and his mom to stay out of trouble, it had become as natural and effortless as setting down his foot. He'd bought himself two weeks. Fine. For all he knew, the aliens would move on Daniel and Roan tomorrow.

  He drove back out in the early morning, taking a change of clothes with him. Once again, the thing was already waiting for him in the cold shadows of the orchard.

  "WHY HERE," it wrote on the pad.

  "Because this is where we met before," he wrote on his.

  "NO WHY YOU HERE"

  He cocked his head. "To learn from you."

  "BUT YOU HATE US"

  "No," Ness wrote. "Well, yes. It's complicated."

  Its semitranslucent lids slid across its fist-sized eyes. "NOT GUTBROTHERS"

  "Us?"

  "YES NOT"

  He scratched the pen over his notepad. "What is a gutbrother?"

  It spun its claws in circles. "IT'S COMPLICATED"

  Ness laughed. Sparrows flitted from the branches, undisturbed by the alien presence. "Then why are you here?"

  "YOU'RE NOT AFRAID"

  Ness laughed at that one for some time. "Yes I am. I'm one tentacle-punch from shitting myself." He crossed that sentence out. He had to be simple. It wouldn't understand figures of speech any more than he understood its talk about dirt. "I'm very afraid. But my curiosity is even stronger. And so is my want to help my gutbrother."

  "DON'T USE"

  "Don't use what?"

  "OUR WORD"

  "Gutbrother?"

  "YES NOT"

  "Why not?"

  "HUMANS CAN'T BE" It swung its claws up and down, eyes rolling. Thinking? Frustration? It waggled its tentacle over the pad. "GUTBROTHERS TALK WITHOUT MOVING GUTBROTHERS DON'T LEAVE GUTBROTHERS HUMANS ALWAYS LEAVING"

  "Wrong," Ness wrote. "I could leave right now. I don't because it would mean leaving my brother to die."

  "WORDS BAD DON'T GRASP TRUTH"

  "I know."

  "COME FOR GUTBROTHERS ALWAYS ALWAYS"

  "And you wouldn't come for me?"

  It clacked its claws rapidly—laughter? Or extreme sobriety? It had reacted the same way when he'd asked the absurdly large question of why they'd sent the plague.

  "THE HELL NO"

  "Have you been watching our TV?" Ness said out loud, laughing. He wrote, "I still don't know why you're here."

  "OWE"

  "You owe me? For telling you who killed your gutbrothers?" he wrote. It wagged its fat head up and down. Ness gazed into
the trees. "Then what will you do to repay me?"

  "HOW RELEASE GUTBROTHER"

  "You'll help me get my brother out?"

  It retracted its claws. "DEPEND HOW RELEASE GUTBROTHER"

  "They keep us locked in two rooms," Ness wrote. "There are a few guards nearby. That's it."

  "DANGEROUS"

  "I know."

  "TALK OTHERS"

  "Tomorrow?"

  "TOMORROW"

  Ness nodded. It was as much as he could have hoped. "What did you mean when you said we used the dirt wrong?"

  It considered him with unblinking eyes. "DIRT WANTS LIFE"

  "But we bury our dead in it? Is that sacrilege?"

  "NO TO BE LIFE" It reached out a tentacle and tapped his notepad. "DEAD DIRT NOT-LIFE"

  Ness pointed at its black pad, writing, "That looks pretty dead to me, too."

  It shook its head. "INSIDE LIVE"

  "What about that?" Ness pointed at the straps of its clothing.

  "EXCEPTION"

  "That's convenient."

  "YOUR WHOLE WORLD EXCEPTION"

  Ness laughed; had he just annoyed it? Well, the alien could deal with it. Ness himself was still a little angry over their whole apocalypse thing. With that thought, he was struck by situational vertigo: he stood in a quiet orchard trying to ally with one of the monsters that had nearly wiped out his entire species. That had killed his mom. That would have killed him, if not for whatever quirk of genetics had left him immune. Why wasn't he angrier? Shawn would have already tried to kill it.

  Himself, he just didn't seem to care. He couldn't take the invasion personally. Ironically, that same lack of personal involvement that had made it so hard to connect with other people was the same quality that left him equipped to speak with the creature in front of him.

  To try to, anyway. He attempted, with minimal success, to explore its concept of live dirt and dead dirt, live air and dead air, but he got the impression it would not have been simple even if the alien had been a native English speaker. It seemed to believe this was a basic organizational principle—that all matter wanted to become life, and thus to shape matter into dead, inert things was to violate some sort of fundamental will, to sin against the very universe—but so much of that was reading between the lines, his human interpretation of its blocky, chopped-up words.