The Guard, Page 3

  I turn slowly, raising my hands. The officers look startled at first, but I’m not sure what aspect of my appearance they’re surprised by. Maybe the fact that I’m not a man. I’ve come to learn that just like on Lorien, the people of Earth aren’t used to a woman being so tall. After the flash of surprise, though, there’s a wave of relief that rushes over them. The one with the big hat on—the one who I assume is in charge—gets in close, putting his flashlight up to my face. He looks at my recently shaved head, then into my eyes for a few moments.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asks.

  “Sightseeing,” I reply.

  He lets out a grunt, but I can see his posture soften. The others lower their guns a little.

  “This is government property,” he says. “Trespassing isn’t taken lightly.”

  “I’m on this side of the fence,” I say.

  He grins. “Which puts you under my jurisdiction. Now, I know just about everybody in Rio Arriba County, and I’ve definitely never seen you before, which means we need to get acquainted. Why don’t you start by telling me why you’re sneaking around in the dark with those hunting goggles?”

  He motions to one of his men. The officer moves behind me and is patting me down before I can object. He pulls the blaster out of my coat pocket.

  “What the . . . ,” he whispers, wrapping his fingers around its hilt.

  He’s obviously never held a blaster before and doesn’t realize what a sensitive trigger it has, because the weapon fires with an electronic sound and melts a hole in my front driver’s-side tire. The SUV leans as the tire deflates.

  “Dammit,” I mutter.

  Suddenly everyone’s guns are on me again, and the man in the big hat’s got my hands behind my back. I think about resisting, but there’s no way I can outrun them now. One of the men starts asking me questions about some deputy I’ve never heard of, but the leader shuts him up.

  “No one talks to her until we’re back at the station. This is my interrogation.”

  “Do you want us to keep patrolling the perimeter?” one of the officers asks.

  “Lights off.” The man in the hat nods. “Stay quiet. I don’t want anyone seeing you—on either side of the fence.” He turns to me. “You have the right to remain silent. . . .”

  My mind races as I try to remember everything I’ve learned in passing about the American justice system, any tidbit of knowledge that might be helpful.

  “What crime am I being charged with?” I ask as he pushes me towards a car I can barely see in the darkness. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Possession of an illegal firearm,” the man says. “And suspected murder of a police officer.”

  I piece together what I can from the back of the squad car based on the conversation between the man in the hat—the county sheriff—and one of his deputies. Apparently two officers went investigating reports of bizarre lights near the base, which I gather isn’t that strange a call for this area. But something went bad. Only one officer returned, his body shot full of cauterized holes from some sort of unidentified weapon. Before he slipped into a coma, he said something about men with tattoos on their heads and black eyes.

  No wonder they reacted so strongly to the blaster firing.

  Panic starts to settle in my chest once the shock of being arrested wears off. I have no identification. I’m not even human. And I’m handcuffed in the back of a locked-down police car with a thick layer of metal grating separating me from the front seat.

  I have to escape this somehow.

  As we shoot through Dulce, sirens blaring and lights flashing, I try to figure out where we are in relation to the motel where my computer and several extra weapons are stashed. The town is small, so it doesn’t take me long to get my bearings—though that also means there aren’t many places for me to hide if I do escape from police custody. Once I spot the motel’s sign in the distance, I memorize the turns we make.

  They take me to a small station in the center of town. I guess Dulce doesn’t need much of a police presence. The deputy pulls me out of the backseat and escorts me through the front doors into a small lobby, where a woman with a headset sits behind a cluttered desk. The back wall is mostly frosted glass. The woman updates the men on their wounded officer’s condition—which isn’t looking good—and then I’m taken through a swinging door.

  The rest of the station is mostly one big, open room lined with wooden desks. My eyes dart around. There’s a weapons cabinet in the back corner of the room, but it’s padlocked. The blinds are down on the windows, and I silently curse myself for not checking to see if there were bars on them when we were still outside.

  “You want her in holding with Tony?” the deputy asks, motioning to the back of the station, where I can see a man sleeping inside a small cell. “He’ll probably be passed out until morning.”

  “Just cuff her in a chair for now,” the sheriff responds. “I want her processed by the book.”

  My left cuff is taken off and attached to the handle on the front of a short metal filing cabinet that has an empty coffeepot on top. The deputy points to a stool beside it, and I begrudgingly sit, pulling on the cuffs as I do, testing the weight of the cabinet. But it’s solid. There’s no way I’m dragging it out of here. I take in my surroundings. The deputy flips on the coffeemaker before walking over to one of the desks. He drops my confiscated blaster—now sealed in an evidence bag—on top of a stack of papers.

  “By the book,” he murmurs, taking a seat. “Sure thing.”

  The deputy types on the computer, the sheriff looking over his shoulder. From their conversation I understand that they’re writing up some sort of report about my arrest. The desktop computers they’ve got here look ancient, and for a second I think about how easy it would be to hack into them and steal every bit of information I wanted. But that’s the least of my concerns right now.

  Eventually, the sheriff walks over.

  “Name?” he asks.

  I stare back at him. Neither of us blinks. I don’t know how long this goes on—minutes? Finally he speaks again.

  “Lady, I can do this all night, but eventually you’ll probably get tired or hungry. Me? I’ll just have the deputy bring me a cheeseburger. Now, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, so you might as well cooperate so we can make your stay more comfortable.”

  Our standoff continues. He pours himself a steaming cup of fresh coffee, never taking his eyes off me, even when he sips from it. The only thing that interrupts us is when the woman from the front desk comes through the swinging door.

  “Um, Sheriff,” she says, clearly concerned about something. “There are two men here who insist that—”

  Before she can finish, the door swings open again and two men in black suits walk in. The first one’s older, with thinning white hair and a wide nose. The second man has dark skin, like me, with a thin mustache running over his top lip.

  “Special Agent Purdy with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the first man says, holding up some identification I can’t see. “I’ve got questions for your detainee.”

  “Now hold on just one goddamned minute,” the sheriff says, starting toward the man. “How the hell did you even know we’d arrested someone?”

  Purdy smiles. “We’re always watching, Sheriff.”

  Of course they are—if the government is working with the Mogs out here, then they’re likely monitoring all sorts of communications. I was probably scanned or filmed the entire time I was out by the fence, even if I didn’t see any cameras.

  So much for being careful. Again I remind myself that I should be back at Yellowhammer, safely behind a computer screen.

  The deputy and sheriff have a heated, quiet conversation at the front of the room. Purdy walks over to me. He pulls back his jacket and flashes a heavy-looking pistol at me before crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Now, why don’t you play ball and start by telling me your name?” he asks.

  “Sir,” t
he other man—special agent?—says.

  Purdy turns and finds his partner holding up the bag with my blaster in it. He nods, and the man pockets it. Then Purdy lets out a whistle and turns his attention back to me. When he leans in close, I can smell stale coffee on his breath, and something else. Something rancid.

  “Powerful little weapon you had on you,” he says. “Where’d you get it?”

  I don’t say anything. He doesn’t seem to mind.

  “Thanks for picking her up, boys,” Purdy says, motioning to the sheriff. “But I’m officially taking over this investigation.” He smiles at me. “You and I are going to have a long conversation back at the base.”

  “What are you talking about?” the sheriff asks. “That woman’s our suspect, and if you think—”

  “You can argue with me all you want, but I believe this woman may have information about acts of terrorism planned against this country. And if you think that means the government is going to let her stay in the hands of this Podunk police force, you’re delusional.”

  I can practically hear the glee dripping off Purdy’s words as he pulls rank on the others. The sheriff sneers, but he doesn’t say anything. Still, his hand is on his hip, close to his gun. The other agent puffs out his chests and walks over to the officers.

  I silently panic. I can’t go back to that base. Not as a prisoner. Not if the Mogs are involved there. They’ll figure out I’m Loric somehow and use me, destroy me, like they did Janus.

  I know too much. About Ella and Crayton. About the white tablet. They can’t get into my head. And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to withstand whatever torture it is they used to make Janus spill all his secrets.

  I have to escape. I’ve tried not to hurt any of the people on this planet—they’re just caught in the cross fire of all this. But I don’t think Purdy counts. If he’s working at the base, he’s working with the Mogs. I don’t mind hurting him; in fact, I think I’d take great pleasure in it.

  He leans close again. “Hope you enjoy your last few minutes of fresh air. Because if you don’t start cooperating, I’ll see to it that you never set foot aboveground again.”

  I’ve got one chance.

  “This is for Zophie,” I mutter.

  And then I attempt a desperate escape.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MY BOOT CONNECTS WITH PURDY’S STOMACH. AS he reels back, I slip off the chair, crouch as much as I can and then leap forward, pulling hard against the cuffs. The square drawer of the filing cabinet jerks out behind me. The cuff digs into my flesh as the drawer catches, but I continue in one fluid motion, pulling at the metal with both my hands. It’s my greatest luck in life that the drawer is full of coffee supplies and not actual files; I’m able to pull it out. It swings over my head in a sprawling arc, threatening to tear my hand from my body.

  There’s a loud metallic bang as the edge of the drawer smashes against Purdy’s face. Suddenly blood is everywhere.

  “My nose!” Purdy gropes blindly at the desk behind him. “She broke my fucking nose!”

  He half collapses into a rolling chair. The other agent has my blaster, so I lunge for Purdy’s gun and then slide over the tile flooring, the now-empty drawer trailing behind me. I fire a warning shot into the ceiling as I duck behind one of the desks. It’s enough to make the sheriff and his deputy take cover.

  Purdy pulls a walkie-talkie out of his jacket pocket and yells something into it. Suddenly there’s a scream from the lobby, and I can see a couple of dark shapes on the other side of the frosted glass before they come bursting through the swinging door: two Mogadorians.

  Shit.

  I don’t hesitate to fire a few shots over the desk at the Mogs, just enough to keep them at bay. The kickback from the weapon is stronger than I expected, and I don’t manage to actually hit any of my targets.

  Blaster fire fills the air and shreds the monitors, papers and picture frames on the desk. I hear a yelp behind me—Tony, the guy in the holding cell, is on the floor, hands over his head.

  “Tony!” I shout. He seems genuinely startled to hear his name, but he looks up and locks eyes with me. I point to my handcuffs. “The key?”

  He shakes his head, lips quivering. I don’t have time for this—I’m not going to get out of here dragging two feet of drawer behind me, and from what I can intuit, Tony’s something of a regular in this station. If he doesn’t help me out, my options are to lose my hand or try to shoot off the cuffs.

  I fire two more shots over my shoulder and then turn back to Tony, pointing the gun at him.

  “The key,” I say firmly, directly.

  His finger quivers as he points to the desk a few feet away from me.

  “S-second drawer,” he says.

  There’s a pause in the blaster fire. I peek around the desk corner to see that the sheriff and deputy have both gone white staring at the Mogs. In turn, the bloodthirsty bastards look back and forth between the lawmen and Purdy as if asking what they should be doing.

  “Goddammit,” Purdy shouts. He’s crouched on one side of the cabinet, a bloody handkerchief up to his nose. The other agent is crouched nearby, covering him. “You weren’t supposed to see any of this. How many messes am I going to have to clean up tonight?”

  I use the confusion and dart to the next desk. Blaster shots pepper the filing-cabinet drawer with holes. I open the desk and dig through a bunch of small packets of potato chips and candy bars until I find a little key.

  Maybe luck is with me.

  I toss the cuffs to the floor and take a fleeting look at my wrist, which is rubbed raw and deep red. I’m about to slam the desk door shut when I see another key—a car key with a tag on it that says 013.

  I pocket it, just in case—if I can get to the parking lot, number thirteen might be my way out of here. I’m going to have to escape this little town somehow, and if this place is crawling with Mogs, I definitely won’t be able to get away on foot.

  On the other side of the station, the cops have realized that the black-eyed, tattooed Mogs are shooting the blasters that likely killed their fellow officer, and they shout all kinds of questions at the bastards. The police train their guns on them. I use that to my advantage: I fire a bullet that shoots straight through the chest of one of the Mogs. He lets out a groan, and then he’s just a pile of dust on the floor.

  The officers shout in confusion. Purdy orders the other agent to take me down, and I fire a shot in their direction. The mostly full coffeepot on top of the filing cabinet shatters, spilling glass and scalding liquid onto the other agent’s head. He cries out in pain as I throw the drawer that had been attached to me seconds before. It smashes out a window on the side of the office—no bars on the outside.

  “Dammit,” Purdy shouts. “Take care of them. I’ll get the woman.”

  The remaining Mog crosses over to the cops in a few quick bounds and swings a thick fist. The sheriff falls in a heap. I make for the window, shooting behind me in Purdy’s direction until the gun clicks. I miss him. Still, I caused him to take cover, which buys me a few extra seconds. I jump through the broken-out window. Glass slices my body, grazing me at several points, but it’s nothing serious. At least, not compared to what will happen if I get dragged away by Mogs.

  Outside, the air is cool, and I sprint towards the little parking lot at the back of the station where I see a handful of police cars. I pull the key labeled 013 out of my pocket, ready to make my escape.

  But there is no car 013.

  Dammit.

  I’m about to make a desperate run for it when I spot two police motorcycles parked against the side of the building. Big, hulking bikes. One of them has #13 painted on the side.

  That’s my way out of here.

  It takes me a few seconds to even figure out where the key goes. Then I just push anything that will move until I finally hit a switch on the right handle that turns the damned thing on. The engine revs when I twist one of the controls—it’s not unlike some vehicles I’ve seen on
Lorien—and the whole blasted machine nearly shoots out from between my legs, ramming into the wall beside it.

  “Whoa,” I murmur, trying to get my balance again.

  A shot sounds behind me, and the clear-plastic shield on the front of the bike shatters—Purdy’s out of the station now, with a new gun pointed in my direction. I immediately regret leaving my blaster behind. It looks like he’s having trouble focusing. A filing cabinet to the nose will do that to you, I guess. Still, I’m not taking any chances. I twist the handle again and drive forward, too fast at first. The bike wobbles, and it feels like I’m going to fall off. But I keep going, slowly accelerating until I can tell the momentum is holding me in place. I don’t even try to figure out how to turn on the headlight as I make my way back to my motel room, remembering the path we took to get to the station in the first place.

  The few minutes it takes me to cross town feel like hours, and I’m sure at every turn I’m going to be met by a line of Mogs. But the streets are quiet, giving me a chance to wonder just how deeply the Mogs have infiltrated the United States—or all countries, for that matter. How much have they brainwashed this planet?

  Is Earth even salvageable?

  My thoughts go back to the police officers. There’s no way Purdy will let them live. Not after they’ve seen the Mogs. I grind my teeth until my jaws ache. If I hadn’t come here, they’d still be alive.

  Or maybe not. They were investigating the base, after all. They’d caught wind that something was wrong there. It was probably only a matter of time before the Mogs and the FBI made some kind of move. I just sped things up. Soon Dulce will probably be nothing more than a ghost town.

  I must look wild by the time I get to the motel, because when I walk into the office to tell the clerk I lost my key, she jumps. But she hands over a spare. Then it’s only a couple of minutes before I’ve packed my laptop and stashed belongings into a spare bag and am out on the road again, leaving Dulce and these Mog bastards behind me. I can’t stay—they’ll be looking for me now, and there’s no place to hide in this tiny desert town. I have to get as far away as I can, before the reinforcements that Purdy has surely called in arrive.