Layla’s mouth felt dry. She gulped. “He left this morning. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Send him here as soon as you do. I can’t get in touch.”
“Is that it, Mr. Augustus?”
“For now.”
The screen flashed back to monitoring the two most northern harvesters. Little red trails across the map, expanding the root coverage. All critical measurements showing green.
They’d murdered Gregor.
Augustus had all but confirmed Igor was in cahoots with him. Igor knew about her clandestine trip to the chocolate factory. It was only a matter of time. Layla focused on short-term survival. There was nothing for it but to grab some personal items from her trailer and get as far away as possible.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mike was still smiling at Charlie when he handed him a chipped mug of steaming tea. Charlie took a deep swig and enjoyed the burning sensation. They sat around a dirty desk only slightly less cramped with stuff than Mike’s former desk above them in the Quaternary building.
“Since the invasion,” Charlie said to the others as they sat around the table, “Mike’s been in his element. Look at this place. It’s a tinker’s paradise. Every imaginable device is here, though most are in various stages of actual usefulness.”
Ethan had taken to Mike right away as Charlie’s old colleague gave the kid the tour. When they came back, it was obvious where Ethan’s future would lie. Right here with Mike building weapons and devices.
There was one problem however. Mai—Mike’s kinda-wife and fellow engineer. They’d set up a cozy existence together. Mai, a Chinese-American nuclear physicist, was one of the survivors within their cavern during the ice age. She and Mike had hit it off right away.
“So,” Charlie said, placing the mug on the table. “Now we’ve got the pleasantries out of the way, what’s the status on the device?”
Mai entered the screened-off area carrying a silver Samsonite case. She cleared a space on the table and laid it flat, opening the lid and displaying for all to see the device that they’d been working on for the last five years.
It was all Mike’s idea. And it’d taken Charlie those five years to source the parts needed.
Maria looked over Charlie’s shoulder and Ethan over Mike’s. Denver was paying no attention, preferring to make a fuss of Pip, making sure she didn’t go sniffing into something dangerous. There was no telling what Mike and Mai had stashed around.
“What is it?” Maria said.
The device was the size of a laptop and was in fact built on the chassis of an old Lenovo Thinkpad. They were built with longevity in mind, and they’d certainly achieved that. In the early days of the design, Mike ironically wanted to use an Alienware machine.
“It’s a bomb,” Mai said, her accent now completely neutral. In the early days, she still had a lilt of Chinese to her, but with all the time spent with Mike, she’d come to sound just like him.
“Well, not exactly a traditional bomb,” Mike added with a smile. He pulled his long gray hair back, revealing a thinning pate. Not surprising considering his age. He was in his late seventies, but like Charlie, regular imbibing of the root kept him young and able.
At least that was one thing to thank the alien bastards for.
“So, what does it do if it’s not really a bomb?” Ethan said, leaning in further for a closer look.
Where the laptop screen used to be was now a rounded, metal shell. The track pad had been swapped out for a small OLED screen from a smartphone. The thing looked like a designer ‘70s toaster with some modern tech cobbled onto it, but beneath that shell was one of the most potent weapons ever devised, assuming it’d work.
“Well,” Mike said, putting his arm around Ethan’s shoulder. “What do you know of EMP devices?”
“Erm, nothing? Yet.”
Mike smiled, seeming to like the kid. “It stands for ElectroMagnetic Pulse.”
“Or Extreme Magnetic Pain,” Mai said with a wicked grin. Her leathery face and its many folds hid her intelligent eyes. She was younger than Mike by twenty years, but they could well have been twins on personality. Both wore wacky sweaters, and both had a brain that Charlie could only wish he had.
“So what does it do?” Maria said. “And how will this save us all as Charlie said?”
“It’ll tear the aliens a new asshole and send them packing back to the ass-end of the galaxy,” Mike said. “Once detonated, those turtle-looking fuckers won’t know what hit ‘em. Inside this unassuming shell is a nuclear bomb that makes Hiroshima look like a bee-sting. When it goes, it won’t just blow anything up, it’ll destroy anything electrical for hundreds and thousands of miles around.”
Maria seemed to understand as she turned to Charlie. “So for this to be effective, it’ll need to be set off within the croatoan ship? That means someone has to—”
Charlie stopped her with a hand, “We’ll come to that later. Mike, what’s the situation; it’s not ready to go, is it? And I can tell something’s up.”
“No,” Mike said. “We need one more part.”
Mai leaned against the table, regarding Charlie with her wise eyes. “Someone will need to make a trip to the Ford warehouse north of here. There’s a special kind of magnet they used in their last models. It’ll help regulate and deliver the pulse. We found an old one, but it wasn’t efficient enough. We need a new, unused one from the parts warehouse—if there’s any there of course.”
“Fuck it,” Charlie said, turning his back. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be an ass, I just thought…” He took a deep breath as Denver entered the room and stood in front of him.
“It’s not a problem, Dad. We’ll go get it. It’s only an hour’s walk. We’ll get the part and be out of here. The plan can still go ahead.”
“You’re right, son. I just wanted… I’m just getting impatient in my old age.”
“Here,” Mike said, handing Charlie a small black disc the size of an old dollar coin. “That’s the burnt-out one we found. We need something like that; two, if you can find them, would be even better. Always good to have a backup.”
“You got it. We’ll go now. Quicker we get it, the quicker we can carry out the rest of the plan,” Charlie said. “How long will it take you to fit?”
“A few minutes,” Mai said.
“Come on, son, let’s go for a midday stroll into town.”
“We’re coming with you,” Maria said. “If it’s this important, we can be of help. Be spotters or something, some extra backup.”
“No,” Charlie said. “It’s too dangerous. Anything and anyone can be out there. They’re not all gonna be like the last lot. The city dwellers are more hardcore. We need to move quickly and without fuss. It’s better if it’s just Den and me.”
“Fuck that,” Ethan said, surprising everyone. He slapped his hand on the table. “We’ve been through all kinds of crap to get here. I appreciate you looking out for us, but Ben’s been sent off to who knows what fate, and now you want us to just sit back. What if you get into trouble and we’re just sitting around waiting for you? No, we’re going.”
Mike grinned at Charlie as he patted the kid on the shoulder. “Looks like they’ve made their own minds up, Chuck. Let ‘em go with you. You can’t protect everyone. At some point, everyone has to call their own shots and stand on their own two feet.”
“Exactly,” Maria said. “It’s our choice, not yours.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Charlie turned his back and headed for the exit tunnel. “Grab your guns and follow me. On your own heads be it.”
The midday sun was just passing noon, creating thin, stubby shadows on the broken sidewalks and roads where the blacktop had long splintered off to expose the concrete beneath.