Aries frowned. “Meaning?”
“Maybe the aliens are organized like a bee or ant colony, with a queen directing all the drones or something along those lines.”
The statement had Aries rubbing his chin. “An interesting theory, but also a concerning one, as we’ve not caught sign of a possible queen or commander. Then again, colonies tend to protect their leaders. A more evolved or intelligent version of the aliens hiding in the background might explain their advanced tech. It’s been discovered that their weapons, while being of alien design, were built using parts originating on Earth.”
“Now I’m the one who’s confused.”
“The materials used to build those energy blasters came from here. The metal, wiring, even the power source, which is some kind of advanced battery utilizing hydrogen, all from Earth.”
“How are they building them, though?” Grayson couldn’t help but frown. “Did they take over some factory without anyone knowing?”
“It appears they’re being custom-made with repurposed items. The two energy weapons recovered from the arena, while functioning in an identical manner, are comprised of different scavenged parts. The designs have the scientists studying them in a frenzy since the technology is beyond what they’ve yet achieved.”
“It makes you wonder what else they can create. I thought I heard mention of them sending nanobots?”
“Yes. Nasty suckers, capable of taking over people’s bodies with the single purpose of easing the arrival of those they call master. At least we discovered intense electrical charges can disable them.”
“Tasered someone, did you?”
Aries lips twitched. “Actually, the nanobot we recovered had been zapped by lightning. Taurus caught one when confronting one of the nanobot-infected. In good news, they are unable to control warriors. In the bad, thus far, we have no idea how to detect them, meaning if there are some floating around, leeching off a person, we might never know.”
“That’s kind of concerning. What if someone like the president or a highly ranked military official got controlled?” Hadn’t Grayson once seen a movie with that premise that ended in nukes?
“It is something to keep in mind, but assuming we destroyed all the ones currently available, then we can only hope the aliens won’t have the proper tools to create new ones.”
“Here’s to hoping the smart aliens don’t take over a high-tech computer lab.”
A remark that made Aries grimace. “We’d be in serious trouble if they did. This situation has too many unknowns, andI don’t like it. Usually, Sage can see a problem coming and we move to counter it, but this… She can only see some of the aftereffects.”
“Such as?”
Aries tucked his hands behind his back and looked out the window as he said in a low monotone, “She’s seen a future where cities have been demolished and humans live like vermin in the rubble. Humans enslaved, despondent, huddled en masse in enclosures. Bodies littering the streets and fields. In that future, there is nowhere safe on the planet.”
A chilling prediction. “But we can change that, right? This isn’t a case of a future set in stone?”
“Visions provide a glimpse into what could happen, thus giving us a chance to change a course or eliminate a threat. The problem is, while the four-armed aliens we’ve been fighting are a clear and present danger, if they are being controlled, as well as manufactured, then the fight won’t end until we eliminate the entities behind them.”
“Where are the monsters in Toronto coming from? They’re obviously not waltzing out of neighborhood homes or warehouses.”
“The sewers and subway lines appear to be how they’re moving about unseen. From what we’ve been able to gather, at the hockey game you were playing in, they entered into the parking garage via a sluice grate. While we did descend to see if we could track them back to their lair, we found ourselves stymied by the tightness of some tunnels. Several of your brother warriors have remained in the city, seeing if they can sniff out the alien base of operations before the next wave hits.” Spoken as if it were a certainty rather than a possibility.
“How long do you think it will be?”
“Guess it depends on how quickly they replicate. We don’t yet know how long it takes for them to get from tiny piece to fullsize, but I imagine it’s closely related to their access to the proper nutrients required to grow. The ones we battled in the arena weren’t the biggest, likely due to the sewer pipe constraints. We’ve run into some much larger and also some that are smaller. Now that the element of surprise is gone, I have a feeling we’ll be dealing with more sizeable threats.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because they’ve gotten brazen about snatching people with no care if they’re seen. Popping the lids off sewer grates and literally grabbing victims by the ankles and dragging them underground.”
“Did no one notice people missing before that?”
“Not really. The aliens went after the homeless first, and no one noticed because there’s always been issues keeping track of their numbers due to their transient nature. What should have set off alarms was the diminishing number of rats and feral cats. But again, no one actually keeps count. It just so happens a rag of a newspaper pointed out that certain neighborhoods had seen a decrease in vermin and that the local animal shelters had seen a drastic drop in people dropping off captured felines. Now that those have run scarce, the aliens are resorting to more drastic and public measures to feed themselves.”
“If they’re in the sewers, does that mean if this lake water actually is poison, we could flood the tunnels to kill them?”
“Most likely. The biggest issue will be creating or importing enough of the fluid to actually reach all the corners they might be hiding in. Not to mention we’ll have to find a way to shut down the subways for a few days so we don’t cause any civilian casualties.”
“What about the tunnel dwellers? We’ll have to warn them, too.”
