V_The 2nd Generation Read online

  Margarita continued. "Under Diana's direction, elected leaders and others got herded into transports and flown to one of the many Motherships. All the prisoners have been cocooned in stasis capsules to be used later by the Visitors as soldiers, slaves . . . and even food."

  In the dark closet, young Thomas chortled cynically. "No way. That's such bull."

  Danny Stein met the Murakami boy's eyes grimly. "You really think so?"

  In all school classrooms The Visitor Way was showing clean streets and cheery, denim-clad human Teammate units as Paul intoned, "Crime is nearly gone because Diana created The Teammates. All humans over the age of thirteen train and serve at least part-time in these grassroots groups that stress fitness, discipline, and spirited camaraderie. All of Earth's armies have been transformed into Teammate units. Many assist local police forces against antisocial troublemakers, and keep our neighborhoods safe."

  THAT SAME MORNING IN DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO PEOPLE WERE presenting their identification papers to smiling Teammates and Patrollers at a Visitor checkpoint. From a large vid sign above them, people were smiling out and applauding as the words flashed: Be a hero! Report suspicious activity! Patrol craft, utility vehicles slightly larger than the Visitor fighters, quietly glided overhead. On the surface, everyday life appeared to be proceeding fairly normally, but most people knew they were living in a subtle, tightly disciplined, and ever-present police state. For those old enough to remember World War II, it reminded them of Paris in the early 1940s after the fall of France. On the surface the Nazi occupation had not seemed as brutal on the general populace as many had feared. The French could still go to the theater, though the plays and films had been judiciously censored. One could still listen to music, though lyrics were carefully expunged of any inappropriate sentiments. A Parisian could still enjoy an espresso while sitting at an outdoor café along the Champs Élysées, though German soldiers in their crisp Wehrma-cht uniforms were sitting at a nearby table or walking along the wide boulevard and chatting, often in French.

  At that time it was still possible to have a reasonable life if one were careful and wasn't Jewish or didn't espouse any important connection to those unfortunates who had been disenfranchised or denounced. In Fascist Italy during those years there was a similar sense that if one didn't question authority and kept one's head down, everyday life could go on and in many ways even improve. The Italian public was delighted that for the first time the trains actually ran on time. Life in the streets of twenty-first-century San Francisco, and virtually all the other cities and towns of the world, had been proceeding for two decades in that same tonality.

  The cocky half-breed girl who had saved Nathan peeked out from an alley, waving for him to stay back behind some trash cans as she scoped out the scene. She also didn't want him to see that she was whispering proudly into a tiny radio transceiver, "Hey, it's me. I've got him."

  In the shadowy communications truck lovely Margarita smiled wisely. "Gee, why am I not surprised? Take him to Street-C."

  The waif nodded to herself. "That's what I figured. I'm already on the way." She clicked off the radio and scurried back to Nathan, pointing a direction. "Down that way. Oh, and hey, I'm Ruby." She extended her leathery hand and he grasped it.

  "Nathan. You Resistance?"

  "You could say that, yeah," she said with a grin.

  Nathan's face was stern. "I want to join up."

  "More the merrier. Why'd you bail on the Teammates?"

  Nathan saw a smiling Teammate troop moving away in the distance and glared in their direction. "I've got some issues."

  They passed a dingy door in the alley and heard the sounds of a small but raucous crowd inside. A very sleazy, unwashed man leaned out to beckon them. "Hey, hey. Gladiator combat. Open betting."

  Nathan kept walking. "We'll pass."

  The man's grimy, unshaven face twisted into a come-hither grin revealing a broken tooth. "Fights are to the death."

  Ruby kept hurrying on. "I'd say there's enough of that on the street."

  "We got women, too, pal. Pretty sexy. You'd like!" Nathan and Ruby didn't look back, but the man kept eyeing Nathan, assessing him carefully.

  THE MIDDLE-SCHOOL TV SCREEN SHOWED IMAGES OF AMAZON RAIN forests being felled, greasy industrial waste pouring into rivers, dense, ugly smog hanging over cities, seabirds trapped in oil, as Emma's voice said, "Most importantly: The Visitors came to save our entire civilization. They saw that Earth was going to die unless they helped immediately. Our industry had poisoned the oceans. The Visitors showed us how oceanic pollution was far deadlier than our very modest science understood. The poisoned oceans are the root cause of all our worldwide ecological problems, including the disappearing ozone layer which shields us from deadly cosmic radiation. Without that, we would die."

  Then Emma appeared on-camera, her green eyes alight as she delivered the good news, "So the Visitors are taking our water to purge it of toxins, to purify it, and then return it to us!"

  Paul smiled, using his hands to emphasize and shape the idea. "It's like dialysis on a planetary scale. We Visitors are masters at this sort of massive purification. Much of your polluted sea water has already been collected, compressed within our Mother-ships, and cleansed. But pouring it back into foul water would be wasteful and counterproductive. We have to wait until the bulk of your toxic water has been removed."

  On Danny's Resistance vid, Margarita was looking directly into the camera. "Visitors taking our water is like how Mulholland dried out the Owens Valley to nourish Los Angeles. Only this time we'll all die. Look at the damage they've done so far." The supporting images appeared as she spoke. "They're increasingly strict about rationing our water because over half of it is now gone. A few brave Visitors sympathetic to us humans have told us the water won't be returned because it's so rare and valuable. Water not only sustains life but to the Visitors it's also like oil: it powers their ships and weapons. And our Earth will be left devastated."

  "Earth will be saved and revitalized," smiling Paul said on The Visitor Way, "and advanced Visitor technologies will make it a much healthier world for the future."

  Emma chimed in, "The impurities the Visitors remove are actually helpful to them, so we all benefit. For their effort, the Visitors will keep about ten percent of our water to use as fuel for their spacecraft."

  Paul nodded. "We'll also continue to use Earth as a base for further space exploration, which all the people of Earth will share the fruits of."

  The vid's cheerful music began to swell as Emma smiled with pleasure and delight at being able to deliver the final, grand message, "Life has never been better or more promising. We'll all have a terrific, harmonious future together! Thanks to . . . The Visitor Way!"

  The orchestral crescendo continued sweeping toward a grand, inspiring conclusion as Emma and Paul gave each other a warm, friendly hug and waved good-bye.

  ON DANNY'S SMALL SCREEN THE RESISTANCE VID WAS SHOWING Margarita's focused, intense face. "Since most of us have seen only their human-looking faces for over twenty years it's easy to forget that underneath they are very different." Diana's beautiful face appeared in a shot that had clearly been captured by a handheld, secret camera. She was seen admiring a live guinea pig in her hand, then she opened her mouth, which suddenly distended inhumanly wide, transforming into a frightening maw. She casually pushed the frightened animal into her gaping mouth, swallowing it whole and alive. It made her throat bulge out grotesquely as it traveled down into her gullet. "These images were recorded shortly after the Visitors' arrival by news cameraman Mike Donovan," Margarita narrated as another shot appeared, taken when Mike's camera had obviously fallen onto its side during a fight: it showed a Patroller in hand-to-hand combat with strong, rugged Donovan, who tore the false flesh of the Visitor's human face to reveal the startling and hideous creature beneath. It was green and covered with thick scales. A dozen tiny horns raised from its temples and across the top of its forehead. A reptilian forked tongue lashed
out.

  "This was our first revelation that the Visitors were not what they pretended to be, but rather a carnivorous, aggressive, and deadly reptilian race." Then Margarita reappeared, speaking directly into the camera. "The Visitors will annihilate humanity unless Earth's people rise against them now. This is our last chance: the Resistance was dealt a terrible blow in 1999 when Diana launched her Great Purge and killed or captured millions of us. You must join us to fight back now—before you, your loved ones, and our planet are destroyed. Please call this un-traceable number and—"

  Thomas reached out and stabbed the button to turn off Danny's vid player. He was shaking his nervous head vigorously. "No, no, this is all bullshit. My dad says—"

  "Your dad's a damn Player, Thomas." Danny was vehement. "I've seen him play along and suck up to 'em."

  "Yeah? Why don't you go suck a—"

  Suddenly the closet door was opened by a seventeen-year-old, human-Visitor half-breed named Ted. He wore janitor's clothing. One of his eyes was human-looking and light brown, but the other was red and had the vertical yellow iris of a Visitor. The scales on his cheeks extended upward and into his brown hair. His ears lay flat against his head. What human skin he did have on his face was troubled by some acne. The leathery skin on his arms completely covered the back of his hands, though the palms were softer and human-looking. He was as surprised as the two boys he had found in his storage closet. "Hey, what're you doing in here?"

  Danny was unrepentant and derisive, "Screw off, scale-face."

  Even the milder Thomas was equally dismissive of the janitor. "None of your business, you stupid dreg."

  Then an overly friendly male voice made their blood chill. "What's going on here?" Danny, and particularly Thomas, blanched when they saw it was the vice principal of Patrick Henry Middle School, Mr. Gabriel. He was approaching up the hallway, a tall, robust man who always had a well-exercised, healthy glow about him. His round cherubic face made him look ten years younger than his actual age of thirty-nine. Though he always spoke with a homey warmth and humor, Danny and many others referred to Gabriel as the Angel of Death and dreaded any encounter with him. They knew that his ever-present smile disguised a very angry and therefore very dangerous man. Danny knew that Gabriel had been passed over twice already for the position as full principal and he had a nasty, underhanded way of taking his frustrations out on the students. His cheery, friendly smile was much more frightening than the glowering face of Mrs. Miles, the uncompromising principal of Patrick Henry. Mr. Gabriel was notorious for dealing out very harsh sentences to after-school detention for even the most minor infractions. Being sent to Gabriel's office or, worse, being captured by him personally in an inappropriate circumstance was universally considered to be the ultimate bad news for any of the middle schoolers.

  Danny Stein had several times come under the glare of Gabriel's overly bright eyes that glowed menacingly out from beneath his arched, single eyebrow. The current instance could prove uncomfortable indeed and Danny knew it. But the boy was a very quick thinker. Before the vice principal glimpsed him inside the closet, Danny shoved his vid player into a back pocket and grabbed two sodden rags from the janitorial sink. He pushed one of the rags into Thomas's hands and the smaller boy looked at him with confusion just as Gabriel opened the door fully. Danny immediately took the offensive, "Oh, Mr. Gabriel. Good. You should know about this."

  Gabriel inclined his head toward Danny with a comradely but satanic wink. "What I know, Daniel Stein, is that you both should be in class."

  "You're absolutely right, sir," curly-haired Danny earnestly agreed. "And we were on the way but then we saw a big spill on the floor here."

  Ted, the half-breed janitor, frowned as he glanced around the nearby spotless floor. "What spill?"

  Gabriel addressed the boys as though the janitor were not even present, "What spill?" Ted glanced at Gabriel and started to protest again, but then looked away. Such dismissive treatment was an everyday occurrence for half-breeds such as Ted. They were called dregs for a reason.

  Danny held out his rag. "I don't know what it was, sir. But it was coming out from under the door here and making a very slippery spot on the hallway floor."

  Gabriel studied Danny and then flicked his dangerously friendly eyes over at Thomas, who jumped on Danny's bandwagon and nodded nervous agreement. "Yes, sir, it was some sort of soapy stuff."

  "We were afraid some student might not see it," Danny continued earnestly, "might slip and hurt themselves, so we stopped to wipe it up. It was a real mess." As he spoke, Danny watched Gabriel carefully to see if the vice principal was buying the story. When he didn't immediately respond, Danny piled on some more, "Then we were going to report it to you, sir. We thought you should know that somebody"—Danny threw a not-so-subtle look toward the half-breed—"maybe wasn't doing his job as well as he needed to."

  Ted's annoyance had increased, but he held his temper. He spoke quietly and respectfully toward the vice principal without looking directly at Gabriel's face. "Sir, I was by here ten minutes ago and I can assure you that there was absolutely no—"

  Gabriel waved Ted to silence and spoke to the boys with a chilly grin. "Very well, Daniel, I'll look into it. Now you two little rascals get on immediately to your class."

  "Right away, sir." Danny tossed his rag back into the sink.

  Thomas did likewise, smiling wanly at the tall man. "Thank you, sir." Then the two boys headed down the hall.

  Ted watched them go and felt a tightness building behind his eyes. He turned to inspect the telltale rags in the sink. Gabriel was continuing to study the boys, and particularly Danny, as they walked away. He had started to turn back to the half-breed when something registered in Gabriel's mind. The vice principal gazed back down the hall at the departing boys, looking particularly at something that was partially protruding from Danny's back pocket.

  4

  NATHAN HAD BEEN LETTING THE HALF-BREED TWELVE-YEAR-OLD girl lead him through back alleys northward across Chinatown from where he had crashed on Market Street. He was aware of the sights and sounds of the city around him, particularly the numerous Visitor shuttle craft that cruised by on patrol overhead, but he was focused inwardly.

  In his mind's eye he could still see Sarah's dying face before him. He was furious that he'd had to leave her body in the uncaring possession of Patrollers and Teammates. He was infuriated at having had no time to properly absorb his loss of her, to honor what she had been to him, to grieve. He thought of Sarah's smiling face over the years, her infinite patience with him as a very angry young man. As his Teammate leader, she had been a mentor, but because of her gentleness and nurture, he had also come to think of her as family. She was like a knowing older sister, almost a mother, who had given him understanding and guidance.

  From time to time during their years together, Nathan had noticed some very small hints from Sarah, an oddly shaded phrase or an averted eye. It was always something that seemed so trivial that only he who knew her the most intimately could discern. He had once seen an astronomer at work over a chart showing a thousand stars. The woman was so familiar with each individual star's placement that from the multitude of tiny spots she could tell immediately if one was out of place. So well did Nathan know Sarah. It was those tiny hints that gradually led him to the feeling that her allegiance to the Visitors might not be as unswerving and true as she professed. But he suppressed those suspicions because of their personal bond.

  He performed his duties as a Teammate with great ardor. He knew that he owed it to his parents because of their sacrifice. Nathan was determined to make up for the untimely death that had claimed them at the hands of the Resistance. He was proud when he distinguished himself during the Great Purge eight years earlier by helping to track down and arrest, sometimes quite roughly, many members of the illegal and dangerous Resistance. And he had also brought to justice many Visitors who had aided and abetted the Resistance. He was much praised by his superiors for his achievement
s and had even been given a commendation by Diana herself, though he had not met her personally.

  But throughout it all, Nathan had an ever-growing concern that Sarah, the person to whom he was closest, upon whose counsel, guidance, and even love he had always most counted, might herself be a traitor to the Visitors' cause.

  His unease had come to a head only within the last twenty-four hours—when he at last found the courage to put to Sarah the questions that had kindled within him over the years and now were burning to be answered. He had held off asking her for so long because he feared her answers and feared the position in which he would then be put. His Teammate loyalty would demand that he denounce and inform on her.

  All his fears were realized when Sarah admitted that his suspicions were justified. She was indeed part of a fifth column cadre, a supersecret network that existed between a tiny minority of the Visitors who did not believe in the grand cause espoused by the vast majority under the guidance of their Great Leader.

  Though he had expected it, Sarah's admission was a stunning blow to Nathan and threw him immediately into a moral quandary. How could he possibly be loyal to the Visitors and Sarah both? She held him close as she had when he was first orphaned as a fifteen-year-old. She comforted him and quietly said that she understood his turmoil. She knew he couldn't possibly decide where to place his loyalties—unless he learned the entire truth. She herself had struggled for years with how and when she might reveal it to him. More than once she had been about to do it, only to have second thoughts, to protect his safety and his future. Like Nathan, Sarah also had anguished over the proper course to take.

  But when he confronted her yesterday, she resolved that the time had come. Now they had both suffered the consequences. Sarah had been killed and Nathan was on the run.

  "This way, come on," Ruby whispered urgently, bringing Nathan back into the moment. She was leading him through an alley off Clay Street in Chinatown. Nathan winced at the smells wafting out of the various establishments, fishy fumes of shrimp and other seafood sautéing in woks mixed in the air with the sour smells of rotting garbage from the trash cans and Dumpsters they were passing. Then Nathan sensed something. He stopped and glanced sharply back over his shoulder, studying the four- and five-story rooftops of the old brick buildings behind them. Looking through the filigree of fire escapes and pieces of laundry hanging from them he thought he caught a glimpse of a blond head ducking back into hiding.