Tommy and Phin were seated at the table closest to the whiteboard with Gabriel hovering behind them, his arms crossed as he stared at the board. Ever since his speech a few hours ago, he’d been in full-on soldier mode. He roped people off into teams according to skill, setting them on tasks that had less to do with creating a life at the motel and more to do with assault—finding weapons, diesel, generators, more vehicles, medical supplies, and a myriad of other things Blake couldn’t comprehend.
Those gathered here were considered part of Gabriel’s ‘assault teams’. What he meant by that, he hadn’t yet elaborated. Blake would tease him that evenhedidn’t know yet, but he didn’t want to slow Gabriel’s momentum. For the first time since they left DC, Gabriel was standing tall, shoulders squared. Like he wasn’t a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Gabriel Lennox was, first and foremost, a soldier. And sitting around licking his wounds didn’t suit him.
“Who gave the hick the marker?” Alvarez groaned from where he was leaning against the front desk.
Victoria gave him a withering look. “Since he’s one of the few people here withexperiencefighting the aliens and taking stockof their weaknesses, I would say he is far better equipped than…some people.”
Alvarez shrank under her glare, mumbling under his breath.
Judd locked in on the whiteboard. He wroteOff Formerson the left of his first line andMonkey Catson the other.
Irving’s frown deepened at the ‘frankly ridiculous’ nicknames that he couldn’t get people to stop using.
Judd began to list things off under Off Formers. “We know the Off Formers cannot withstand our atmosphere. Their armor or suits or whatever are technically breachable, but it takes a hell of a lot of ammunition.”
“And unless we find something with more kick, we’d have to be in very close range to even make a dent,” Phin added, jaw working.
“Right,” Judd agreed. “Which means electricity is probably our best bet.”
“Excellent. We’ll just call Thor up and ask him to go ahead and smite the aliens for us.” Alvarez snarked, his fingers drumming on the front desk. “We don’t even have enough electricity to power up a hair straightener. How are we going to frymultipleOff Formers?”
Blake grit his teeth. Alvarez was being a dickhead, but he was, unfortunately, a correct dickhead. The Off Formers knew they were weak to electricity, which is why their EMPs were so effective. They made sure to disarm them before they even landed.
“What about lightning?” Tommy asked. “We could wait for a storm and make a big lightning rod, or something. Let Mother Nature do the heavy lifting.”
“It’s an idea,” Gabriel said, scratching his nails through the stubble on his chin.
“Not really,” Irving cut in. “Lightning is unpredictable. We have no way of knowing when, how, or what intensity oflightning will come at any given time. There is also no way to contain the lightning.” He steepled his fingers. “It would be like trying to fill a five-gallon bucket with the water from an Olympic swimming pool—there’s just too much of it. Any container you try to use would be destroyed within the blink of an eye.”
Gabriel waved his hand. “All right, let’s put a pin in the Off Formers for now.”
The smell of dry-erase marker was overpowering. The board was covered with Judd’s unique, small block lettering. His fingers were smudged with black as he wiped out something, mouth working around the pen he had between his teeth.
Under Monkey Cats, he wrote ‘short life span’ and ‘biological’. Then: ‘no tentacles’.
Everyone stared. Victoria was the one who broke the silence. “They don’t have tentacles.”
“Exactly,” Judd said. “I figure we need some positivity on the board.”
“How does not having tentacles help us?”
“It makes things easier.” Judd crossed his arms. “There are only two kinds of tentacles—Kraken and Hentai. And either way, we get fucked.”
No one knew what to say to that. Irving’s eye twitched.
Like he usually did with Judd, Gabriel ignored him and continued, “The unique armored plating on the Monkey Cats makes a clean shot almost impossible,” Gabriel began, eyebrows furrowing. “And all their vital organs and bits are small, closely clustered in the middle of their chest.”
“So not only do you need a clean shot, but you need one that will penetrate deep enough to do any damage,” Phin recapped, leaning back. The chair squeaked in protest under his mass.
Blake sat back as the conversation continued without him. The more they went over things, the more hopeless it seemed. Whether it was the Off Formers or the Monkey Cats, theyseemed specifically created to be hard to kill. Which was obvious. But if they were difficult to kill foreach other,then they were impossible for a human.
A soft, easily squashed, and or punctured human. He was beginning to feel the passion from Gabriel’s speech ebb. It’s one thing to feel invincible standing in a mob, fueled by crappy coffee and severely misplaced optimism. Another completely, to try and formulate a plan that didn’t end up with them looking like a bug on a windshield.
Beside him, Sara began to squirm. She fiddled with the ends of her hair, completely tuning out the conversation around her. Blake didn’t blame her. She should probably be out coloring or something. No one had thought to find something for her to do when they all set about preparing for war.
What does a six-year-old do during war? Hide? No. That wouldn’t work. Blake’s mother always said a bored child is a child who gets rug burn on their nose from pretending to be a pig on the carpet. Which, to be fair, he only did once. But the lesson stuck.
“Hey,” he whispered. She blinked up at him with wary eyes. “I uh—I don’t know what you like to do, but I have a couple of books you might like. One has a kid with a magic pen and a snarky horse that I liked when I was younger. So if you want…” he trailed off, feeling dumb.
