The Takeover, page 30
“I hate them already, and I haven’t even met them yet.”
“Well, we may not have to worry about meeting them any time soon. If one thing’s clear, it’s that they don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Just hearing that makes me want to disturb them. Maybe we should set up amplifiers outside their domes and blast heavy metal music at them.”
“That could be an interesting experiment—but let’s let the Russians or Chinese try it first.”
“Good thinking.”
“Phants,” said Lametti thoughtfully. “Spelled with a PH. That’s odd, isn’t it? Why not an F? Well, at least we know what to call them now.”
“I wonder what it means.”
“Probably ‘Sublime Thinkers’ in Phant.”
President Talbert chortled. “They don’t look like much physically, do they? Ungainly, I’d call them. If only we could get past those force fields of theirs, I’ll bet we could take them in a fair fight.”
“I doubt they’ll ever give us the chance,” Lametti responded. They may never come out of those domes of theirs. ‘Do Not Disturb’ makes it sound like they’ve got some serious thinking to do.”
“About what?”
“Who knows? Contemplating their navels? If they even have navels.”
“Well, they certainly don’t have noses,” sniffed President Talbert. “And those wasp waists—ugh!”
“At least they’re humanoid after a fashion. They could have looked like spiders. Or blobfish.”
“What’s a blobfish?”
“It’s ugly—look it up sometime.” Lametti sat silent for a minute then shook his head. “You’d think after an interstellar voyage, they’d want to get out and stretch their legs a bit. You know, get the lay of the land. Go for a walk. Do anything but stay put and think.”
“’Do Not Disturb.’ That really fries my bacon. There’s got to be some way we can contact them.”
Lametti shrugged. “We could try messaging them back, but I doubt they’d read it. They made it pretty clear they don’t want to be bothered. In fact, they set their reply settings to ‘none,’ which is like saying ‘Do Not Disturb’ in another way. It sounds like they only want the communication to be one-way.”
“Sounds like them, all right.” President Talbert stared at her phone for a moment before tossing it aside in disgust. “They already have more followers than anyone on X, including me.”
“What? Just since this morning?”
Talbert nodded. “Crazy, huh?”
“Crazy is putting it mildly.”
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
“Did you hear?” Josh asked Kaley. He was practically exploding with excitement. Woof was at his heels looking equally excited.
“Hear what?” Kaley asked.
“They made contact.”
“Who made—ohh! They made contact.”
“Yep.”
“What did they say?”
“You’ll never believe it. They called themselves sublime thinkers.”
“No way.”
“And they told us not to disturb them.”
“Get out.”
“But they say they mean us no harm.”
“Isn’t it a little late for that?”
“It sure is. They call themselves Phants.” Josh showed her his screen so she could read the message for herself.
“Weird. Phants. Sounds like elephants and ants: Phants. They don’t look like elephants or ants though, do they?”
“Not really,” said Josh. “Well, maybe a little like ants with those tiny waists of theirs. But they’ve got the opposite of elephant trunks—they’ve practically got no noses at all.”
“That’s what we should call them: No-noses.”
“Yeah. Or Jabbars,” laughed Josh.
“Huh?”
“Because they’re so tall. You know, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?”
“Who?”
“Forget it. Anyway, they seem kind of annoying, don’t you think? Calling themselves sublime and all?”
“What’s sublime mean, exactly?”
Josh looked it up. “Of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.”
“Like Woof.” Kaley gave Woof a warm hug. “But Woof would never say that about himself, would you, Woof? They sound kinda stuck-up if you ask me.”
“I’ll say. But their technology’s sublime, there’s no denying that. I still can’t get over that landing.” Josh fiddled with his phone for a minute, and then they were both watching a sped-up video of the ships—thousands of them—appearing from above, spreading out across the skies in formation, then landing in synchrony. “I could watch that a hundred times.”
“It looks like a lot of people already have,” said Kaley. “Look how many hits that video’s gotten. These aliens are rock stars.”
“Reclusive rock stars. They’ve barely shown themselves over the past month.”
“Too bad. I was really hoping to get to meet an alien.”
“So you’d still want one of them to live with us, even after all they’ve done?”
Kaley thought about that for a moment. “Nah. I blame them for getting Mom shot, and a whole lotta other people killed.”
Josh nodded. “Yeah, me too. They’re definitely not making many friends down here, are they?”
“Ashley might like them. They sound as stuck-up as she is.”
“Hey, be nice. Ashley’s trying.”
“I’m just saying, she thinks she’s sublime, they think they’re sublime…”
Josh gave his younger sister a disapproving look, but he couldn’t keep the twinkle out of his eye. He pulled up a picture of the two aliens standing atop their ship and stared at it, with Kaley looking over his shoulder.
“They look so weird,” Kaley said. “I can’t believe we have actual aliens living right here on our planet with us. And not just any aliens: sublime ones.”
“Sublime my eye. They’re sublimely full of themselves is what I think. We need to take them down a peg or two.”
“And how are we gonna do that? We’re just kids.”
“I don’t know,” said Josh. “I guess I’ve got some of my own sublime thinking to do. But what I want is to give them a taste of their own medicine. I want them to regret ever coming to this planet in the first place.”
“They will once you get done with them,” Kaley said with the absolute conviction of a younger sister for her older brother.
San Gabriel Mountains, California
Dr. Rachel Cavanaugh was one of the few people in the world who didn’t despise the aliens for calling themselves sublime thinkers. She envied them instead for a culture in which sublime thinking was celebrated. Sublime thinking was underrated in her opinion.
Not wanting to be disturbed made perfect sense to her, too. Anyone who had ever tried to calculate how to land a rover safely on Mars would understand how interruptions could be fatal to success. Deep thought required deep concentration.
But having seen what she’d seen over the past several months—piles of dead bodies, traffic jam cemeteries, whole cities obliterated—she took strong exception to the alien claim that they came in peace. They came in anything but peace. Even if they didn’t mean to harm humans in some abstract theoretical sense, they’d harmed humans plenty in the practical sense. The enormous death toll—human and animal alike—spoke volumes in that regard. The aliens could try to wash their hands of it, but their hands were bloody beyond the scope of the worst human tyrant—and that was saying something.
For now, Rachel was content to live in a cabin she’d found for rent in the tiny town of Wrightwood, which was located at the end of the Angeles Crest Highway deep in the San Gabriel Mountains. It was about as far away as one could get from the world and its problems these days. In exchange for teaching math to kids in the local school, she got a weekly food stipend. After classes, she’d pour herself a glass of wine (while there was still wine to be had), pull out her notebooks from her JPL days, and pore over them looking for answers.
There was still so much she didn’t understand about the domes. So much to obsess over, in the words of her former boss. She didn’t mind staying hidden away in her cabin for the time being, thinking her own private thoughts, with her own metaphorical “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.
Chapter 38
September 2042 – Charlottesville, Virginia
So I was thinking: we should do something about these aliens of ours,” Royce said one day as they sat outside rocking on their front porch.
Aubrey laughed—she couldn’t help it. “What is there to do, Royce? They won. They came, they saw, they conquered. Just like invaders are supposed to do.”
“Yeah, but what are the invaded supposed to do?”
“Lie down and take it?”
“Resist. Fight back. Scratch and bite and claw if they have to. Like you did in New York when that asshole grabbed you.”
Aubrey rocked in silence for a time, recalling the worst day of her life. “So you want to scratch and bite, is that it?”
“And claw too. I want to fight back. And I think you do, too.”
“Oh? And how do you figure that?”
Royce just stared at her. “C’mon, Aubrey. I’ve seen you staring up at the ceiling at night, trying to cope with what happened that awful day. Tell me you wouldn’t want to avenge their deaths if you could.”
“Of course I would, Royce, but it’s hopeless.” Aubrey began ticking off on her fingers. “Half of our land is gone, most of our cities are obliterated, our entire economy is in shambles, and we’re second on the totem pole of our own planet. How can we possibly succeed against them?”
“That’s not even the half of it.” Royce started ticking off on his own fingers. “We have no idea how to destroy a dome or get inside one, the aliens have us licked when it comes to technology, our weapons are useless against them, and everything that should have been tried has been tried. The aliens clearly think we’re beneath their notice.”
“Wow, way to make your point, Royce,” Aubrey said, rocking furiously all of a sudden. “You’ve really sold me on this whole resistance idea of yours.”
“Now hang on. I have a plan, and I think it’s a good one.”
Aubrey stopped rocking just as suddenly. “You’re kidding. You have a plan. For defeating the aliens. The federal government and the U.S. military and renowned scientists from around the world haven’t been able to do it, but you have a plan.”
Royce nodded.
“Okay, then, let’s hear it.”
“We offer ourselves up as adoring servants to the Phants.”
“You’re kidding me. That’s your plan?”
“That’s my plan. I’m betting that eventually—eventually—these Phants will bring certain vetted people into the domes to do their dirty work for them. You know, house cleaning, laundry, trash removal, janitorial duties, that sort of stuff. These ‘sublime thinkers’ certainly aren’t going to do that sort of drudge work for themselves, are they? That’s how we get inside. And once we’re inside, we keep our eyes open, and we smuggle out whatever information we can to take down the domes.”
“They could have robots for all that,” Aubrey pointed out. “They may not need us at all.”
“That’s possible,” Royce conceded. “But if they do need us for anything, we’ll be ready. We could even learn a little Phant to make ourselves more useful to them. Maybe even play-act at being…you know…a bit worshipful of them.”
“Ugh. I hate that idea.”
“Of course you do. You’re not supposed to like it.”
“Doting servants. I don’t think I could pull that off.”
“Not even if it was our ticket in?”
Aubrey rocked in silence for a time. From inside the house, she could hear Dominique squalling, as she usually did right before naptime, and Sara giggling as she played a game of go fish with her grandma. “The Phants won’t even talk to us at this point, Royce. I hate to say it, but your plan seems kinda iffy to me. It’s based on a whole lot of assumptions, for one thing.”
“I agree. I’d be worried if you didn’t think it was iffy. I’d give it maybe a five percent chance of success at best. But even a one percent chance would be worth it given the stakes, don’t you think?”
“Mmm, maybe.”
“But all of that’s way in the future anyway. All I want to do for now is recruit people to the cause.” Royce leaned in closer. “So here’s what I propose: we leave the house behind for your family and hit the road in our RV.”
“Okay, I like the sound of that so far.”
“We get the lay of the land, get a feel for just how bad things are in different parts of the country, then begin to organize a resistance.”
“Like the Rebel Alliance.”
“Go ahead, have your fun, but I’m serious.”
“Well, you know how crazy this all sounds, don’t you, Royce? The whole idea of organizing a resistance to an alien invasion from an RV is just bonkers.”
“Of course it is.”
“Besides, we don’t know the first thing about organizing a resistance.”
“Not a thing.”
“And who’s gonna listen to us anyway?”
“Maybe no one.”
“But you want to try anyway.”
“I do. I mean, what have we got to lose? I’m not going back to selling stocks, and you’re not going back to selling real estate, and we can’t just sit here rocking in these chairs for the rest of our lives. We’re too young for that.”
“Speak for yourself. I like rocking in these chairs.”
“Sure, for now, but we both know it’s gonna get old before too long. So why not do something useful with our lives? We’re both good at persuading people, and we both know how to network and build trust. So let’s make a beginning. If nothing else, we can harass the Phants into regretting they ever came here. Nip at their heels, annoy hell out of them, cause trouble at every turn….”
“We are good at causing trouble.”
“Right? And if we get organized now, while the Phants are still busy ignoring us, then we can be ready to exploit any weaknesses we may find down the road.”
“If they have any weaknesses.”
Royce shrugged. “Only time will tell. But if they do, it’s scientists we’ll need to recruit most of all.”
“Why scientists?”
“To set up a…a brain trust of sorts.”
“A what?”
“A group of experts from a wide range of fields who can learn to read and understand Phant. Scientists, engineers, physicists, mathematicians, biologists, and the like. Because if we ever do manage to smuggle out meaningful data, we’re going to need people on the outside who can read and comprehend it.”
“And you want to do all this without the Phants knowing what we’re up to?”
“Well, they’re not exactly engaged with us at the moment, are they?” Royce pointed out. “They’re hidden away in their domes thinking their sublime thoughts. From what I can tell, they’ve shown no interest in us whatsoever.”
“That’s true.”
“Which means we have a free hand for the time being. We should take advantage of it and start recruiting people to the cause. Because if we ever do manage to steal their secrets and get a handle on their technology, then it’s only a matter of time until we take them down.”
Aubrey laughed. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Not easy, but possible. If we can disrupt those domes of theirs, we have a fighting chance of kicking them off this planet.”
Aubrey rocked in silence for a time.
Royce eventually spoke into the silence. “So, what do you think?”
Aubrey looked at him with a flat expression. “I think you’re batshit crazy is what I think. But I’m tempted anyway, probably because I’m batshit crazy too.”
Royce took her hands in his. “Is that a yes? I think it’s a yes.”
“Wow, you really are a recruiter.” Aubrey let the silence stretch a little longer. “But yes. I’m with you.”
“Really?”
“Really. Like you said, we can’t just sit around here doing nothing for the rest of our lives while the world goes to hell in a handbasket. At least your plan involves traveling around the country in our RV, and I like the sound of that.”
“Well, what do you know? My first recruit!” Royce leaned over and kissed her with such gusto she nearly fell off her rocker.
“You’d better not kiss all your new recruits that way, mister.”
“Only you. Only my first.”
“Then, God help me, I’m in.”
Royce literally cheered, jumping up from his rocker with such enthusiasm that it kept rocking on its own.
“Now all we need is a slogan or a…a rallying cry or something for our new resistance movement. Something like…’Kick the Bastards Out.’ No, that’s stupid—sounds like we’re talking about Congress.”
Aubrey thought for a moment. “How about ‘Earth or Bust’?”
“Hey, not bad! I like it! We could make it into a bumper sticker and put it on the back of our RV.”
Aubrey got up too and started pacing around the deck, looking more enthused than she had in weeks. “You do realize this is insane, don’t you?”
Royce laughed. “Of course! But here’s the thing, Aubrey. They have somewhere else to go. We don’t. That means we’ll fight harder than they will. And we’ll never give up. Not even if it takes a lifetime, or several lifetimes.”
Aubrey laughed. “Let’s just commit to one lifetime for now, what do you say?”
“I say Earth or Bust, baby—Earth or Bust!”
The End
The trilogy continues in Book 2: The Occupation
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this book,
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For reasons unknown even to himself, Robert Charlton loves to read and write about end-of-the-world scenarios and cataclysmic events that he would never in a million years want to experience for himself. The actual Robert lives peacefully in Boulder, Colorado and loves to hike and travel the world with his wife. Following the “Write What You Fear” school of thought, he has depicted a financial collapse in this novel that has no bearing whatsoever on the real world (he hopes). He begs you not to sell your index funds for gold coins and mattress money. To learn more about this fascinating study in contradictions, visit www.wherewebe.com.
