The Invasion (Extended Version) Read online

  It was immediately obvious a thaw was under way – and a rapid one at that. But that wasn’t what had caught his eye. The insects – already twice the size they had been in the house – were burrowing a deep hole in the yard, throwing dirt and dust high as they worked.

  Industrious little fuckers.

  As long as they did it over there, well away from the bunker, Hiscock would be happy.

  He watched until it started to get dark outside. By then there was a sizable mound in the yard, and no sign of dust or dirt in the air.

  They’ve gone deep.

  I wonder what they’re after?

  Around the world, others were asking the same question.

  Another chopper in the Amazon provided the most frightening pictures. The beasts hatching there were bigger than those being seen elsewhere. And they were proving to be ferocious diggers.

  The pilot took the chopper over a hole bigger than a football field. Down inside it a roiling mass of the creatures could be seen, furiously tunneling towards their as yet unknown goal.

  “Each of these creatures on screen is over nine feet long,” an anchorman said over the pictures. “Reports have come in of similar mounds all over the world, ranging in size from many hundreds of meters down to a matter of inches. The size of the creatures does not seem important. They seem to be born with just one imperative – to burrow.

  “Geologists have studied the areas where burrowing is underway, but no clear pattern has emerged as yet. We believe the actual site of any burrowing is mostly random chance and opportunity. But it is clear they have a purpose. A search is under way – it is just we do not as yet know its their goal.”

  Another series of pictures taken from the International Space Station and a spy satellite taken over by Homeland Security showed the sheer scale of the devastation being wrought on the planet. Between the tropics, little remained but green sludge and vast forests of the lance-like stems, many of which had seeded, but the bulk of which had yet to reach maturity.

  North and south of the tropics the lance forests did not grow in such abundance – but the green sludge still covered vast areas of ground. Whole countries had been subsumed. Much of Central Europe was now no more than a bubbling puddle of green slime, and the same applied to the US Mid-West and most of British Columbia and Alberta.

  Pictures from the BBC showed a thick forest of spears twelve feet tall surrounding Buckingham Palace, the Queen herself having long ago been removed to a safe place.

  And everywhere the cameras pointed, the insects burrowed.

  This isn’t over.

  Not by a long way.

  Alice and Dave stood at the window of Alice’s house looking out towards the ever-growing hole sitting in place of the Dupree residence. It had collapsed some two hours before, the house falling in on itself with little more than a muffled thud.

  They had started to make preparations to take to the Zodiac, but held off when the hole seemed to stabilize. There had been no sign of activity in the past hour.

  By now they knew about the diggers, having seen the news reports. The television was down to just a fraction of its usual channels, the rest showing only white static. And those who did survive were showing reruns of the same set of video clips over and over – the large dig in the Amazon, the forest encircling Buckingham Palace, and the peaks and canyons of the new forest still springing up over what had been Manhattan.

  Alice had taken inventory of the supplies in her own larder. Even after stocking the Zodiac with as much as it could safely carry, she still had enough provisions to keep both her and Dave for at least a month.

  But I seriously doubt we have a month left to us.

  Dave had tried hard to convince her to take to the Zodiac, but she found the ties of the house hard to break. There was a certain security about being indoors, and even after seeing the Dupree house fall in such dramatic fashion, she still felt safer being inside.

  But not safe enough to take off the survival suit.

  Both of them were getting warm and sweaty inside the suits, but neither had removed so much as a glove since the scene in the Dupree basement, and both jumped at any small noise.

  Dave was trying again to get her to leave.

  “We can get to Saint John easily,” he said. “The authorities…”

  She reminded him of what he’d said at the start of the mayhem.

  “This is all we’ve got,” she replied. “The authorities will all be in their bunkers by now, if they’ve survived.”

  Dave pointed out at the large hole in the ground.

  “But we can’t stay…”

  Alice watched the hole. When she spoke, it was as if she was trying to convince herself.

  “They don’t seem remotely interested in us. Yes, they have a plan. But it doesn’t involve us. I think, if we stay quiet and under their radar, they’ll leave us alone.”

  Dave laughed bitterly.

  “Until they get hungry you mean?”

  “And it’ll be dark in less than half an hour,” she said. “Do you really want to cross the Bay in the dark? With all that’s going on?”

  Dave shrugged.

  “I don’t know. What I do know is that I need to get off this island.”

  Alice didn’t reply. A movement had caught her eye, something in the air at the far end of the island.

  Eagle?

  She immediately knew this was no bird of prey. It was much larger, and swooped down on them fast.

  It wasn’t a flying saucer – but it was the closest thing to it she was ever likely to see. It looked like a black egg hanging in the sky. As it came closer she could see the oval was distended slightly at the front in a small dome – but there was no sign of windows, nor any evidence of a means of propulsion. It seemed to be a single sleek piece of material – black and slightly oily, like the shell of a beetle. It was the size of a pickup truck and came to a stop, hanging silently in the air above the large hole in the ground.

  “What the hell is that?” Dave whispered at her side.

  She thought she knew. During her post-graduate course she’d visited a coal mine. The miners had all been industrious and worked like Trojans. The foremen had ruled the roost though, swooping down in surprise visits to check on progress.

  And that’s what this is – a foreman, checking on progress.

  “Shush,” she said. “It will move on soon.”

  Dave wasn’t to be placated so easily.

  “Move on? What makes you think so?”

  Alice couldn’t take her eyes from the hovering object, almost transfixed by its simplicity.

  And there was something more. She could feel it.

  As she studied the craft, something inside it studied her.

  She tried to concentrate.

  Images came to mind – a purple sky above a planet where tall lance-like spears grew in tightly regimented rows in valleys beneath cyclopean towers of black -- unbroken by any window or door.

  Something seemed to push against her mind, as if repelling her. She pushed back harder.

  Outside, the hovering oval wavered and fell six feet before righting itself.

  Dave ran for the shotgun.

  “Keep at it,” he shouted.

  She turned and looked away from the object.

  Dave looked towards her, then beyond, out the window.

  “Whatever you were doing, I suggest you get back to it.”

  The black egg had left its spot over the hole and started to drift – straight towards them.

  Once again Alice felt the probe in her mind, and once again she pushed.

  The egg wavered, but kept coming.

  Another image grew in her mind, of the vast emptiness of space, going on and on, blackness without end. Then, suddenly, a blue shining pearl -- glowing like a beacon. As if from a dizzying height she swooped. It was as if she was homing in – straight at this tiny island off the Eastern coast of Canada, straight down to a house on the edge of the sea, straight at a window wh
ere a Day-Glo orange figure stood, watching.

  I’m seeing myself as it sees me.

  The thought was too much for her. She pushed it away.

  The egg wavered, just as the air was filled with the crack of the shotgun going off.

  As if in slow motion the craft cracked open along one side. A misty vapor hissed from the wound as the egg fell to the ground. The leading edge hit an exposed rock and crumpled.

  Everything suddenly went still.

  ***

  Hiscock had started talking to himself. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d miss the company of other people. He’d never really interacted with anyone on a day-to-day basis, but just knowing that he might be the only person left in the city had him more than a little spooked.

  He wasn’t reassured after talking online to several fellow survivalists across North America. They were all in the same boat – locked on their own in a subterranean bunker while their fears – for some of them hopes – were being played out for their viewing pleasure on their network feeds. There was still little consensus as to what was actually happening – many of his fellow bunkerites still insisted that this was a New World Order takeover, and anything they were seeing on screen was little more than smoke and mirrors – special effects to keep the plebiscite under control.

  For once, Hiscock found himself disagreeing.

  Those diggers on my carpet were a bit more than a special effect.

  More worryingly, several of his regular contacts, survivalists with whom he’d shared tips and strategies for months, sometimes years, seemed to have fallen completely off the grid. Perhaps they were deliberately keeping themselves quiet for fear of attack or, a more frightening thought by far, their carefully prepared plans had gone awry and their bunkers had been compromised.

  The thought brought a whole new bunch of worries he decided not to think about.

  Not just yet.

  He left his fellow bunkerites to their conspiracies and went back to scanning what remained of the news media. It immediately became apparent things had moved on to yet another new phase. Yes, the diggers were still digging, but there was only so much mileage to be had from showing pictures of deep holes in the ground. The media needed something to focus on.

  And they’ve found it – in spades.

  That afternoon the black eggs came from the sky in flocks of thousands, each one coming to a halt hovering over a dig site. They seemed to vary in size, corresponding with the size of the hole they were sent to investigate – some were only the size of a football, whereas others measured forty meters and more.

  “It is believed these craft are some kind of scout vessels,” one announcer said. “They are obviously checking the progress of the diggers.”

  “Diggers” had become the word of the day, now that the “Green Carpet of Terror’s” reign seemed to have passed.

  “Attempts have been made to communicate with these eggs,” the announcer continued. “But as yet with no success. We are still no further forward in discerning the motive for this continued attack on our planet. Nor indeed do we yet know exactly what all this digging is meant to accomplish. The worry in official circles is that we may not be around long enough to find out.”

  It was getting dark across the Eastern Seaboard now, and the media attention switched further West. They were just in time to see the start of the next phase unfold.

  “Reports have been coming in all day of noxious air, with sporadic instances of suffocation as a result. But there has been nothing on the scale that we are now seeing in low-lying regions across the plains.”

  The camera showed an aerial view of a town as yet untouched by green rain, slime, or diggers. Instead, it had succumbed to something just as deadly. Bodies lay everywhere on the ground, dead where they had fallen in the course of their day-to-day lives.

  “Death came almost instantly,” the announcer said. “Hydrogen Sulfide is heavier than air, and when it falls into low lying pockets, it is a silent, deadly killer.”

  The camera showed a series of images in quick cuts. Dead lay on the ground in cities thought free from attack. Streets lay quiet with only the accompanying whirr of chopper rotors disturbing the silence.

  “Paris, Rome, New Orleans and Dallas, Delhi and Hong Kong. All over the world, silence is falling.

  “We are being exterminated.

  “We don’t know why.

  “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “Let me shoot it,” Dave Roddie said.

  They stood over the crashed craft, looking down into a crack running the length of the vessel.

  The pilot was down there, lying on a bed of what at first glance looked to be little more than glowing seaweed, tendrils of which ran to the outer hull of the broken craft. The pilot itself seemed at first to be another, albeit larger, example of the same insect species as the diggers, but closer inspection showed where the others had pincers, this one had soft, almost feathery, bristles brushing at the weed-like tendrils. Every brush-stroke brought a vibration from the hull.

  That’s how it’s controlled. He’s trying to make it fly.

  Even when its efforts proved fruitless, it still continued on the same course of action.

  It can only do what it is programmed to do. It’s just another drone.

  “Go on,” Dave said again. “Let me shoot it.”

  But Alice’s scientific training had kicked in.

  “We might be the only people in the world with access like this,” she said. “I need to get it into my shed. I’ve got my sample kits and microscopes stored away… I can have a small lab set up in no time.”

  “What for?”

  “To study it. If we can find out what makes it tick, we might find a way to fight back."

  Dave showed her the gun.

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  But when she started to climb down into the ruined craft he put the gun down and helped her. She was able to detach the creature from the surrounding structure of tendrils with little difficulty. The beast struggled feebly in her arms, but did not have the strength to resist her. A thin green fluid ran freely from its abdomen.

  It must have been injured in the crash.

  Between the two of them they managed to carry the dripping bundle to a table in Alice’s shed. It was colder in here than outside, and with night falling it would be well below zero in several hours.

  They laid the beast on a trestle beside the bulk of the Zodiac. Now she had a closer look at it, it looked more like an Arthropod or shrimp than an insect. It had a squat body, reminding her of a wood louse more than anything else, and eight hairy legs, four on each side. Two long bristled feelers completed the appendages, rising from either side of the head. It was these it had been using to control the craft.

  The head itself was small, and there was no sign of any eyes.

  It wouldn’t need them inside that solid black egg. This thing was made… and built for a purpose.

  The legs waved feebly but it showed no sign of being able to move any further.

  Dave stood over it with the shotgun while she prepared the adjoining trestle as a makeshift lab.

  Her hands shook as she assembled the microscope.

  I’m about to study an alien life form.

  She pushed the thought away. If she allowed it to take hold she’d never get anything accomplished.

  She started by having a look at some of the thin green fluid continuing to seep from the beast. She wasn’t really surprised to find it was a diluted form of sulfuric acid – much less potent than the green rain, but essentially the same stuff. There were small cell-like structures floating freely in the liquid. Her microscope didn’t have the resolution for her to study them in detail but she had no doubt what they’d be… not cells, but machines.

  The things we’ve been seeing can only be driven by nanotech.

  One of the legs twitched violently as she took samples of tissue, so much so Dave almost fired on reflex, but the creature h
ad gone quiet again as Alice went back to the microscope.

  The tissues confirmed her suspicions. Every cell had a regular rigid cell wall, like no animal on earth – but similar to that of a terrestrial plant. Within each cell smaller bodies, similar to the ones in the green fluid, moved with obvious motive. But the cellular structure was just too alien. She had no idea what she was looking at.

  But someone might.

  She had a camera fitting for the microscope. It only took five minutes to hook it up, and another five to download a series of pictures, both of tissue and bodily fluid. She wasn’t sure whether she would get Internet access – she went through a satellite, and had no way of knowing whether it was still up there or not.

  First she tried to send the information to her old professor on Newfoundland, but the server returned it as undeliverable almost immediately. After failing with several other scientists on her contacts list she resorted to the scatter-bomb attack, mailing the pictures to everyone on her list along with a short explanation and a request to pass it on to the authorities. Many bounced back immediately but some seemed to get through.

  Someone will see it and understand. Someone must see it.

  The last thing left to study was the creature’s head. She’d already established its blindness, and was keen to see if there were any other sensory organs present. She leaned over the table for a closer look.

  And immediately she felt its presence in her mind, only a tickle at first, then stronger as it probed. Once more she had a vision of a planet under a deep purple sky, with dark stems rising, casting shadows from a moon that rose above jagged hills. Things moved among the stems, low-slung and insect-like, farmers tending to the growth.

  And it was not just on the ground where things scurried. Something crossed the face of the moon -- a thin body, propelled by gossamer wings, hovering like a vast dragonfly above the plain below.

  Alice felt herself being sucked downward towards a dark edifice on the plain, a pyramidal structure enormous in scale, black as coal and swarming with drones. It had a hole in the top, a tunnel leading down into its bowels and Alice knew she did not want to see what was inside.