Contact: Alien Invasion, #2

CONTACT

Alien Invasion Book Two

AVERY BLAKE

JOHNNY B. TRUANT

Copyright © 2015 by Sterling & Stone

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

THREE MONTHS LATER

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

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Also By Johnny B. Truant

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Chapter One

Did you see anything? Piper asked. Anything at all? 

Trevor was slumped on the couch, his NexFlight game system’s power cord creating a tripping hazard in the underground bunker. It was supposed to be plugged while charging, but the batteries had dwindled to useless over a month ago. There were vast stores in a cold cellar near the bedrooms, reserved for flashlights and lanterns in case of emergency. Meyer would have a fit if Trevor used them for games. But Meyer wouldn’t throw a fit because he was gone. And, Piper felt more certain by the day, was never coming back. 

I didn’t look. Trevor’s eyes never left the game. 

You didn’t look? Go look, Trevor. 

Trevor sighed and met Piper’s eyes for a split second. Then, as he’d been doing since his teen boy hormones had kicked on months before the ships had arrived, looked moodily away. As if he couldn’t face her, or was too cool for a maternal figure — stepmother or not. 

What? 

What’s the point? 

"‘What’s the point?’ What if your dad’s out there, Trevor?" 

He’s not. 

You don’t know that. 

Trevor shrugged — he didn’t have an answer but wasn’t ready to obey. The same shrug he’d give his sister, if Lila had asked. But Piper wasn’t his sister. And with Heather around, she clearly wasn’t his mother. But she was something, and dammit, she didn’t like being ignored. 

Go on, Trevor. We all have our jobs. 

"Why, though? Dad made the place a fortress with everything we’d want or need. You keep making up things to do that don’t need to be done. ‘Check the air filters, Trevor.’ ‘Check the cameras, Trevor.’ ‘Bring out more cans, Trevor,’ as if anyone can’t just grab whatever food they want. And what exactly am I supposed to be looking for with the air filters? What do I know about air filters? ‘Yep, they still look like big fuzzy accordions.’ Trevor rolled his eyes. It’s like you’re just trying to keep us busy."  

Piper felt her temper rising. At first, she’d felt nothing but fear. Then Meyer had vanished, and intense worry mingled with her terror. A halfway sense of loss followed a few weeks of missing him, but even the emptiness had been hard to maintain over the past three months as the bunker’s day-in, day-out routine composed life’s underground ritual. 

Wake, chores, kill time, sleep. Rinse and repeat.

Crowds gathered on the grounds above, then swelled to a small colony. They’d stopped being able to go outside, and cabin fever worsened. Resentment was Piper’s newest emotion. She had to shoulder this burden herself. She seemed to be the only one willing to do what was needed to keep them together, safe, and sane. It was a responsibility she hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. Meyer might have saved them, but he’d also left his wife holding the bag when he’d gone … well … wherever it was he’d gone. It wasn’t fair.

Just do it, Trevor, she snapped.

He rolled his eyes again then stalked toward the control room next to the storage pantry. His shoulders were slumped, and she caught his put-upon look. She wanted to shout after him to improve his attitude but couldn’t stand the sound of those words from her mouth. 

No sign of Dad on the cameras, Trevor said, emerging a few minutes later. "Though I don’t know why you couldn’t just look."

Piper held her tongue, forcing herself to remember that Trevor was as scared, cooped-up, and angry as she was. It was inconvenient that his method of coping made it harder for Piper, but it was what it was.

The thought softened her mood. She eased onto the ottoman beside the couch as he lay back and resumed his game. 

Trevor. Look at me. 

His eyes found Piper’s. She saw his angry glare melt into a boy’s dark and injured gaze. Then his eyes flicked away, but even a moment of vulnerability was better than nothing. 

I know you think this is stupid. And I guess you don’t like me telling you what to do. That last bit had a double meaning. Even back in New York, Piper hadn’t told either of the kids what to do. She’d always felt too much like one of them, being only eight years from her teens. But times had changed, and in their new situation, Heather only made jokes. Piper didn’t want to be the bunker’s only responsible adult, but if she didn’t take the helm, nobody would. 

I’m just trying to do what your dad wanted. He built this place to keep us safe. And thank God he did, right? 

Trevor shrugged without looking up. 

"But … Trev … it’s not enough to survive. It’s not only just having enough water from the spring — and food, and vitamins, and the UV lamp for Vitamin D, and enough propane to get us through the winters. Yeah, he did make this place a fortress, and yeah, he was a smart man who thought ahead and—"

"You mean is, Trevor mumbled into his shirt. He is a smart man."  

Of course, honey. Piper put her hand on his arm in what she hoped was a motherly way. Trevor flinched but let her hand remain. At least that was something. He thought ahead, and that means we have everything we need to survive for a long time. 

Piper considered telling Trevor some of the particulars she’d learned from the systems manuals but decided not to. Trevor was barely listening, and he might find the details more daunting than comforting. He didn’t need to know about the power redundancies, the satellite hookup, the three levels of water supply, the stockpiled propane, or the weapons that terrified Piper more than reassured her. For Meyer Dempsey, prepared and paranoid were sisters. There were entire sections of the manuals — the deepest cellars of Meyer’s paranoia — that Piper couldn’t bear to read. Meyer truly had thought of everything, including things nobody should ever have to think about.

"But ‘just surviving’ is kind of like … like ‘barely alive.’ We don’t want to simply exist. We need things to do. To stay normal, you know?"

That’s why we have a TV. And games and books. 

Piper sighed. "Yeah, but just being entertained is like being on vacation all the time. Do you know how, at the end of summer vacation, you’re almost eager for school so you’re not just sitting around, doing whatever you want?"

No. 

I’m not sure I can explain this in a way that’ll make sense, but … Piper sighed. "Even if the result of our chores don’t matter, doing them does." 

Mom says they’re stupid. 

Piper looked toward the doorway, leading into the bunker equivalent of a study. Heather and Lila were in there, mostly out of earshot. Piper would probably win if Heather challenged her authority to tell the kids what to do because Heather was such a wiseass. Piper didn’t want to test that theory. Heather, like the kids, seemed determined to deny certain realities. But it wasn’t fair to ask the kids to choose between two mother figures. Like parents divorcing, Heather and Piper had to present a unified front rather than using the children as pawns between them. 

She’s not thinking about things like this, Trevor. Your mother has her hands full with Lila. She’s much better with the whole pregnancy thing, seeing as I’ve never been pregnant. 

Seeming embarrassed, Trevor glanced down at Piper’s body then back at his own chest.

Your mom’s good at being a mother, and I’m good at … She trailed off. Nagging came to mind, but Piper didn’t like that at all. She searched for a replacement to describe her pestering duties. Nothing came. 

Look, Piper said. Think of it this way: do you think it’s stupid to keep checking those cameras? 

Maybe. 

What if tomorrow is the day you check them and see your father? Piper pointed toward the spiral staircase in the room’s corner. Right up there, at the door by the bathroom, appearing on the kitchen camera. What if he comes back, but we never see it? 

Can’t he just knock? 

The simple question — and the almost hopeless way Trevor had asked — broke Piper’s heart. I don’t think he could do anything we’d hear, sweetie. The door is strong, and closed is closed. 

Trevor shifted moodily on the couch. If you wanted him to come back, you shouldn’t have closed us in. 

That’s not fair, Trevor. We discussed this. All of us, together. 

Trevor shook his head. Again, Piper tried to slip inside his mind to see things as he must be seeing them. He wasn’t trying to be difficult. He was dealing with their situation in the only way his defenses allowed. They all had their defenses. Heather made jokes; Lila got bitchy and blamed it on pregnancy hormones; Raj acted like an obnoxious prima donna, complaining and whining and futilely trying to contact his family on his idiotic little communicator watch. And Piper? She checked manuals and made chore lists.

As Trevor had said: the bunker ran itself so long as power from the windmill stayed on. And yes, that power had been buggy, but it was nothing she needed to worry about. There were redundancies: a rechargeable battery array inside the bunker, plus solar panels on the roof and in a nearby clearing. If redundancies failed, a generator sitting in the utility room with the battery array exhausted to the outside. And if that failed (or if its gasoline went bad; she’d read that it only lasted about six months), they had daylight reflected down from concealed skylights to light their way, propane to heat the place, and a lifetime’s supply of food. There were plenty of lanterns and LED flashlights, plus a few security lights mounted on the walls. They’d be fine. Her constant policing was just whistling in the dark, and it wasn’t fair to blame Trevor because his coping strategies appeared less productive than hers. Fretting was fretting, no matter its form. 

"I didn’t want to close the door, Trevor. But we all agreed that we had to. We left it open as long as we could. It isn’t as if we can just leave the thing closed and unlocked. Your dad changed something when we came in the first time, somehow arming the place. Now the only way to get in is for the person on the inside to let them in. We would have had to literally prop it open. And how would that work once the crowds started showing up?"

Trevor looked toward the ceiling. It was made of reinforced concrete and could probably (knowing Meyer) withstand a bomb blast. But for a moment Trevor seemed to be trying to see or hear through it — to cast accusing eyes on the hundreds of people occupying the house, the grounds, the hills beyond the trees in their tents. The people who’d forced the family to shut the door that might keep his father out. 

Power flickered. Piper flinched, looked up, and saw a tear brimming in the corner of Trevor’s eye. He noticed it before it could fall and wiped it furiously away. 

He looked toward the TV, obviously longing. For the first month and a half, that thin black screen had been their window to the world. They’d obsessively watched. Then, one morning, Lila had turned it on and found nothing. There was still power to the set and satellite receiver, but not a single channel on air. The Internet died the same day. Cell service, spotty from the start, had ceased. They’d used the screen to watch old TV shows stored on the living room juke ever since. They’d been living in a little black box. Their world was the bunker and what the cameras showed them. Beyond that, there might not be any Earth left, for all the Dempseys knew.

"Do you really think he was … you know … taken?"

I don’t know, Piper said. But yes, she did think that — same as the many other abductions they’d heard of before the broadcasts stopped. Meyer wouldn’t have run off. Not after all he’d done to get them here. And if he’d gone out in the middle of the night and been killed, they would have discovered his body. Despite searching far and wide, they’d found nothing. 

Do you think any more of the people who were taken have been sent home?

Piper patted his arm. She had no idea. It had been five or six weeks since they’d seen their last news report, but as of that time, abductees had been returning at a rate of about five or ten per week. They simply arrived back at their doorsteps — always dazed and confused, usually strange to loved ones and friends, sometimes paranoid and violent. Even if Meyer returned, he might be different. But still, even after all this time, there was a chance he might come home as he’d been, against all odds. But here and now, Trevor was seeking reassurance rather than fact.

I’m sure they have been, honey.

And do you think— 

Trevor didn’t finish. 

At that moment, the bunker lights began to go out for good.

Chapter Two

Goddammit, Morgan Matthews said, looking at the lock. 

Terrence was behind him, holding his tools. He’d placed the high-powered flashlights, still on and pointed at the nook by the home’s bathroom, on the unfinished kitchen countertop. Morgan didn’t need to look back at Terrence to imagine his face: smug — very I told you so.

Morgan didn’t want to turn and confirm. He might kill Terrence if he saw that look on his face. And he needed them all, at least for now. 

I told you, Terrence said. 

Morgan clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms. He forced himself to take a quiet, sighing breath before turning. He found Terrence’s dark features devoid of his smug look, but the fucker had gone ahead and said the words aloud. 

Hack it, Morgan said. 

Terrence shook his head. His black skin made him hard to read in the twilit room, and his sunglasses in the dark made Morgan want to punch him. His hair managed to look stylish instead of disheveled. His vest mocked the air’s chill in the same way his sunglasses scorned the mostly set sun. His bare, lean arms were painted in tattoos. Morgan never understood why black guys got tattoos. It seemed like a waste of ink since you could barely see them. Morgan’s own Irish skin — which had no tattoos — would have made a much better canvas. 

Terrence’s defiantly cool manner, as he looked back at him now, infuriated Morgan and made him want to shove a gun in his belly. But he’d never enter the concealed basement without Terrence. He forced himself to let the irritation go. Besides, that displeasure was misplaced. He loathed the closed door. He merely disliked Terrence and the other four men in his crew in the way Morgan Matthews disliked everyone. 

I can’t hack that lock, boss. 

Why not? 

For one, how am I supposed to get in? The computer controlling the lock is inside the door or behind it. But secondly, I don’t know anything about it. 

Morgan pulled on the door. It wasn’t just closed and locked; its very substance felt solid, as if its core were concrete or solid steel. But you cut the power. 

This system is solid. Cutting the power isn’t enough. 

"You cut the redundant power, too."

Terrence shrugged again. 

Morgan turned toward the approaching footsteps, coming from the kitchen behind him. It was the kid, Cameron. Morgan liked Cameron better than Terrence, despite him being a thug with no special skills. He and Dan, the big mother Cameron had shown up with, seemed like scrappers. Maybe they had a gay thing going on; Morgan didn’t know or care. 

Cameron had a screw loose, and that was all that mattered. Morgan liked a little crazy in the people he worked with. 

Some dumbass from the tents-and-hippies set camping around the house had questioned Morgan’s authority to cordon off the estate’s west side at the nook where they found the exhaust pipe. The same dumbass had complained when Dan and Vincent dug around the pipe, searching for treasure. Morgan didn’t like being questioned. But before he could so much as threaten the dumbass into submission, Cameron had leaped on the guy and beaten him until there were maybe three breaths left in his body. So yeah, Cameron was the coolest of the bunch, in Morgan’s mind. A real team player. 

That pipe over on the side of the house is still cold, Morgan, Cameron said, his breath a bit short. That was another thing Morgan liked about Cameron. The kid hustled, even if only from the home’s side to the kitchen door.

Terrence turned to face Cameron. Then finally — blessedly — he removed his oversized sunglasses and tucked them into his vest pocket. 

Of course it’s cold, he said. What, did you think the generator was going to kick on?  

Dan and Christopher entered the kitchen behind Cameron. Outside, in the fading light, Morgan could see a few of the gathered hippies watching them enter the kitchen. They’d looked askance at Morgan and his men since their arrival, but those hippies out there wouldn’t say dick. Even at the end of the world, tough ideas failed at the finish line. Morgan’s gun didn’t stop them. Many people in the crowd had guns. But with their pussy attitudes, those guns might as well be sticks. Morgan was willing to use his weapons — even for the hell of it. Most people weren’t as cool with violence. Morgan was, and those asswipes knew it from watching his walk. 

Dan and Christopher traded a glance. They seemed as if they might report the same thing as Cameron: that the exhaust pipe sticking out of the foundation was still cold, and they were surprised that Terrence had been right — that the machine on the other end of that pipe was off and would remain that way.

I told you, I clipped off the switch, said Terrence. The generator won’t kick on as long as it doesn’t realize power from the windmill and solar has been interrupted. He looked at them, annoyed. You didn’t question Terrence’s technical know-how. Even Morgan, who was otherwise in charge, knew that.

Christopher said, I’m not even convinced that’s a generator on the other end of that pipe.

"It’s a generator, said Terrence. There’s a pipe sticking out of the wall." 

Maybe it’s a furnace, Christopher said.

It’s not a furnace, Terrence retorted. 

How do you know? 

Terrence rubbed his forehead as if Christopher’s stupidity hurt him. It’s not a big enough pipe to be a furnace. It’s also not insulated. There’s not nearly enough clearance, and it turns a ninety-degree angle within six inches of the foundation. No zoning inspector in the world would okay that, and this is new construction. Terrence gestured toward the unfinished kitchen.

Christopher chewed his lip. We’re wasting our time here. 

How so? Terrence asked.

Digging down the side of the house to where the pipe enters the foundation all goddamned day. Jimmying with those wires and junctions. Christopher wiped his nose. "We should be fleecing these fucking hippies. Hell, they want to be taken; you hear them serenading the aliens with Kumbaya. Why wait not make it easy on them? We could take shit from them right now."

Terrence put a hand on Christopher’s arm. Christopher flinched then settled. Terrence glanced at Morgan then gave Christopher his shut your mouth because I’m trying to save you from getting shot by the boss look. 

We’ve searched the house, he said, still watching Christopher’s eyes. "There’s no basement access inside, and yet there’s clearly an exhaust pipe coming out of the ground over there. So what did we do, Christopher?"

We dug. 

Terrence nodded. We dug. And we found out that the pipe goes right into the foundation. Think about that for a minute. What does a pipe going through a house’s foundation say to you? 

Who cares? 

"There are no crawlspace vents around this place. No cellar access on the outside. No basement staircase. And yet still, there’s clearly something under the house. Some machine worthy of what’s clearly an exhaust pipe." 

How do you know that’s what it is? Christopher asked, even though Terrence had just told him. 

Shut up, Christopher, said a new voice. 

Morgan looked up to see Vincent enter the kitchen. Vincent was all muscle, with tattoos on dark skin like Terrence. Vincent had run the group before Morgan arrived to show them what a real boss looked like. He usually fell into line under Morgan’s orders but bore watching. A big guy like that, clear military background, having been the previous leader? Morgan knew to watch his back. Once they finally breached this bitch of a door, it might be smart to put a bullet in Vincent’s face. Just to make a point. 

Got something to say, Vincent? Christopher asked. 

Just shut your fucking hole. Vincent stepped closer. Your problems with all of this are duly noted. You still don’t think there’s a bunker under this place even now, even while staring at a hidden door at the back of a closet with a motherfucking Fort Knox lock? Fine. Go run off and play with someone else. That’s one less share to split of whatever’s down there. 

Christopher exhaled loudly and stepped back. Vincent turned to Terrence, nodding at Morgan as if urging him to continue.

So the generator doesn’t look like it’ll kick on now that the main is cut, Morgan said to Terrence, setting aside the twin problems of Christopher and Vincent for another time. So that means you did it right. 

I told you I had it figured out. What, you don’t trust me?

You said you couldn’t be sure, Morgan said. Fake wires and all. 

There were a lot of decoys, Terrence said. "The phone box over there’s a decoy. Same for the Internet. I don’t even think the net here is wired at all, but someone tried to make it look like there’s a fiber line running to it. There were two decoy power lines from the windmill, and that’s on top of the bullshit wire running up to the pole and then just stopping, which flat-out insulted me. But like I said, I got it. There’s a legit line buried up to the windmills on the hill and another to the solar — one on the roof and another to the panel farm in the clearing. Then there’s the one that goes through the wall. Again, some decoys. But I pinched it off with the inverter and battery, Morgan. That generator in there doesn’t realize there’s no power coming in." He stopped short of adding, Just like I fucking told you ten minutes ago, asshole. Morgan didn’t like that. Nobody called Morgan Matthews an asshole.

So if the power is out, why isn’t this door open? He tapped the big, complicated computer lock on the hatch at the back of the broom closet.

"It’s impossible to be sure without going inside, but it could be a few things. They may have a failsafe power supply inside that we can’t see. If I were designing a system, that’s how I’d have done it: put a self-contained, probably rechargeable short-term power source inside the walls that doesn’t rely on anything outside. So it’s possible they still have power, even with the generator off and the mains cut. Even so, there are still some obvious precautions I’d have taken even if there’s no power down there at all, and they’re knocking around in the dark." 

Like? 

A contained power source for the lock itself. A battery inside the mechanism. 

Can you unplug the battery? 

Not without getting inside.

What else? 

There’s plain old physical barriers to consider: deadbolts, lock bars — even something jammed behind the door. 

We can break through that kind of shit, Morgan said. 

Maybe. Terrence rapped on the door. But this? It’s a motherfucker. If we want to get inside, we’re going to need more than a lock pick. 

Morgan eyed his all-purpose electrician, mechanic, and computer hacker. I assume you’re up to the challenge. 

Terrence crossed his arms and nodded. I think so, but it’ll be tricky. 

Tell me what you have in mind, said Morgan. 

So Terrence did.

Chapter Three

At first, Lila couldn’t see a thing.

She took a shallow breath, her heart beating like a tiny,