Chapter 18- Short Leash

Chapter 18

Short Leash

Villa Escobar, Venezeuala

A US marine Blackhawk helicopter landed at the edge of the village, blowing dust, sand and clothes from washing lines.  A ten man marine squad jumped off, already geared up as if they were going to be on the moon.

They joined another twenty marines, equipped with battle weapons and flame-throwers and began to set up a perimeter around the village.  Of course the villagers found this more than a little unsettling.

“Who are these Martians?” asked one villager to another.

“The helicopter was an American one,” replied a well informed villager.

“We should talk to them and find out what they want,” suggested another.

When a villager approached them, he was warned off in English and then Spanish.  He turned around to his friends, perhaps speaking particularly to Mr Helpful Suggestions.

“Now what do we do?”

The marines grimly waited to see what their first order of business would be.  One Staff Sergeant leaned over his weapon and sighed.

“Cant even fucking smoke in these things,” he grumbled.

Satcom, somewhere in Virginia

Colonel Adams wasn’t happy at all but he tried not to let it show in front of the team.  Around ten people were looking to him for how to proceed.  The Kiowa had landed but so far, no one had been sent in to relieve the pilots and get the casualty clear.

“Doctor, I need you to proceed incredibly carefully.  The subject may well have been exposed to Arctic Blue.  This makes him fatally contagious,”

“I understand Colonel.  But if we can save this man, we have to,” replied Doctor Howson.  Adams sized the air force doctor up.  He knew that Howson was a very intelligent man, famed for his quick wits and his even temprement.  But he hoped that he was also a team player.

“Doctor, it may end up that we have to let this man die.  Or worse, we may need to triage him,” said Adams.  One of the other men looked around but Adams ignored him.  They stopped by the hangars double doors.   Captain Fellows gave the order.

“Check your weapons,” and there was a scramble of activity, weapons taken off safe and rounds chambered.

“I understand Colonel.  You’re talking about the greater good aren’t you?” asked the Doctor.  Adams just nodded.

“I hope this is a real greater good.  A lot of BS has been sold on that one before,” added Howson.

“Too true” replied Adams.

Two non-coms prepared to push the doors to the hangar open and Colonel Adams steeled himself to deal with whatever was on the other side of those doors

Villa Cyranno, Venezuela

“See what we have here?” asked Hannah to the others.  They were gathered around an altar that it was fair to say had been “unholied”.  Hannah had felt the chill of her old Catholic days swell inside her but she’d swept it aside.

The others gathered around to see the body, most keeping more distance from it than made much sense.  Hannah stood right next to it, trying to show them that in death it was no longer dangerous.  Burned and twisted limbs were curled up horribly.  What little of its face remained did not resemble a human being anymore.  Long canine teeth were visible.

“This guy was attempting to fuse, to take bio-mass from these pigs when we stopped him.  This guy, who is clearly not human, was reshaping his body with that bio-mass,” she said as simply as she could.  Chung was nodding, she knew she didn’t need to convince him.

“Why?” came the question.  It came from Dietz.

“I think that he was hurt, or wounded at the time.  So he was trying to fuse himself with this live bio-mass to repair dead tissue,” she said.

“That’s only a theory though” added Chung.  “We really don’t know what the motive was at the moment,”

“Fuck it, he could have just been having lunch for all we know,” quipped Storm.

“Shut up,” barked Wooderson.

Hannah was greatful for Wooderson’s interruption.  She gave him a moment of appreciative eye contact and then went back to what she was doing.

“If what Senor Cordoba says is true, then it’s possible, in fact even likely, that one of these things has the ability to change its shape,” she said.  She knew this was the most absurd thing she had to tell them.

“Yes, yes that is right.” Said Oscar.

“If they can change shape, then that fits with what I was saying before.  They can change shape to hide, like a chameleon.  Then they can kill and add the bio-mass to themselves if they need to.  Or they can change their shape to replicate the form they just killed,”

“Jesus preserve us,” breathed Dietz, his hand went to his cross again.

“We don’t know this is true though do we?” Said Roburn.

“No we don’t.  It’s a working theory,” Said Hannah.

She looked over to Colonel Dalton.  He looked shaky, still.  His face was pale and she thought she could see him talking to himself.

“So if someone has been replaced by one of those things, how do we know?” asked Storm.  She was pleasantly surprised with having his attention on this issue, she figured the hard-headed soldier would be tricky to convince.

“I don’t know yet.  Marcus and I will try and figure something out.  What we really need is a surgeon or a doctor down here.  But the internal organs of the, the thing we killed are identical to those of a normal human being,” she said.

“You’re kidding me?” asked Harrison.

“It makes sense,” said Chung.  “It wouldn’t be much of a mimic if it was that easily identified,”

“This is bullshit,” said Newman.

“You secure that shit son,” barked Harrison.

“You really believe all of this?” asked Newman.  His eyes were wide.  This wasn’t skepticism, this was fear.

The team looked from Hannah, in her role as their lecturer back to Dalton, in his role as their team leader.  Dalton said nothing at this time.

“So what do we do?” asked Hunter.

“We’ve got maybe fifty villagers here.  We need to figure out which of them are really who they say they are,” Said Harrison, bluntly.

“What?  We’d need more men for that,” said Newman.

“Yeah, we’re not equipped for any of this, “added Roburn.

“This is the Air Force, not a fucking democracy” growled Harrison.  “You’ll do what you’re told.”

“Ok, we break up into our two man teams again and sweep the village,” said Dietz.

“I’m not sure that’s a great idea,” Said Chung.  Dietz fixed him with a baleful stare but Wharton came to his rescue.

“No, no, he’s right.  This is worse than you thought. If its true, then you split people up into two man teams and that plays right into their hands,” said the agent.  Hannah could already see where he was going with this.

“Right now, somebody here might not be who they say they are,” said the agent, saying what they were all thinking and none of them wanted to say.

“Bullshit,” said Newman again.

“No, I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while now,” said Hannah.

“So we need to figure out which of us isn’t human anymore then,” said Colonel Dalton.  They all looked around at the Colonel, who’d barely said anything for fifteen minutes.

“Hannah, Marcus, what do you need?” he asked them both.  Marcus turned to look at Hannah but she shook her head.

“I’m not sure how you could tell.  Medical records would be the same, as would blood type,”

“Also, look at this things brain,” said Marcus.  He pointed the flash light beam into the cracked skull of the thing on the altar.  “Pathways in the brain are closed off, as if it knows it wont need them.”

“So what, it wont have emotions?” asked Dalton.

“No, the opposite, it’ll have all the emotions and memories it thinks it will need.  And no more than that.  That is very efficient.” Said Marcus, a tone of admiration in his voice.

“So they’d act the same as ever, they’d look the same and we can’t blood test them.” Said Dalton.

“There must be a way though,” said Hannah.  “We just need to think of what it is”