Invasion

28

Maya stepped between Cameron and Gerald, staring into his eyes, her lower lip trembling.

“Maya, hang on. I can explain.”

She balled her fist and swung, her knuckles smacking off of his left cheek. She then grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and threw him against a nearby JLTV.

“You son of a bitch. How could you?”

She reared back again, but two soldiers came over and pulled her off him.

“What is going on?” one of the soldiers asked.

“You want to tell them, Gerald? How you’re a kidnapper?”

“What’s she talking about, Waller?”

Gerald straightened his clothes and rubbed his face where he’d taken two blows from two women within two minutes.

“It wasn’t kidnapping, goddammit. They’re my kids, too.”

“Wait. This is your ex?” the same male soldier asked.

The other asked, “And what is this about kidnapping? You said your ex-wife wanted you to take the kids to safety because she was an EMT and had a job to do.”

Maya crossed her arms. “Well, at least you only lie half the time.”

“Look, everyone. Please calm down. I can explain everything.”

“I’m not going to calm down.” Maya took a step toward Gerald again, but the soldiers blocked her way. She swung her arms away from their grips, trying to fight them off.

“Let her go,” Gerald said. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s get back inside and then we’ll figure it all out.”

Maya hissed out a curse, glaring at Gerald, daring him to say something and give her a reason to go berserk. But he looked to the ground, avoiding her stare. The soldiers seemed less inclined to fear the threat of aliens anymore in the bright sunlight, now focused on the family drama unfolding before them.

Gerald waved Cameron toward him. “Come on, honey. You can ride with me.”

“I don’t think so, darling.” Cameron walked over and stood next to Maya.

Gerald thrust his hands out, as if pleading innocence.

“She’s with me. We’ll see you inside,” Maya said before she walked back to the car. She turned and shouted at Gerald. “And I want to see my kids the second we get in there!”

She climbed into the driver’s seat while Cameron got into the passenger seat. Luke jumped into the back. Maya took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly as she watched the soldiers turn the JLTVs around to face the gates.

“Well, that was interesting.” Luke thrust his head between the seats with a weak smile on his face, his eyes darting from Maya to Cameron.

Neither woman responded. They didn’t speak to each other, either. Maya felt Cameron looking at her, but while she had empathy for the woman’s situation, her concern for the well-being of her kids was her priority—and she wasn’t about to counsel the new girlfriend through the disintegration of her relationship with her ex.

Maya threw the Honda into drive and then hit the gas, following the JLTVs through the front gates. They took the main drive a quarter of a mile as it snaked along the inside of the stone wall, the caravan stopping beneath a covered entrance which resembled the face of an Emergency Room wing at a hospital. Two soldiers stood to the side of the door smoking cigarettes.

The vehicles parked and the other soldiers went inside or joined in for a smoke. All of them except Gerald. He waited for Maya to park and for the three of them to get out of the car. When she walked up to her ex this time, she kept her hands balled into fists at her side instead of swinging through the air at his face.

“Where are they?”

A female soldier had come out of the sliding glass doors and walked over to her with her hands up. “Ma’am, we have to run you through processing before you can do anything.”

Maya narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“We’ve got to follow protocol.”

“Fuck you and your protocol! I want to see my kids!”

The female soldier stepped back, raising her eyebrows as she looked at Gerald.

“It’s fine,” Gerald said to the female soldier. “We’re going to skip procedures with them.”

She shook her head. “Can’t do that. It’s orders, and they come from above your pay grade.”

“I’ll take the fucking heat for it. Now, step aside and let them in.”

The soldier stared at Gerald for another moment, and huffed before she looked at Maya, Cameron, and Luke. But she then stepped to the side and let them walk toward the sliding glass doors.

Maya and Gerald walked side-by-side to the entrance with Cameron and Luke walking behind them.

“You’re welcome.”

“You’ve got to be joking. Shut up before I give you a matching welt on the other side of your face.”

Gerald nodded at the smoking soldiers as they stepped through the doors and into the main lobby. “I saved you over an hour of processing.”

“Just take her to her fucking kids, Gerald,” Cameron said.

Gerald led them past a front desk manned by a soldier who looked as though he’d fought in Vietnam. Maya guessed that the military, if it even existed anymore, had begun to take in veterans or anyone else with weapons knowledge. The war for Earth didn’t require rank, just men and women who weren’t afraid to fight the aliens.

With a wave of his hand, Gerald ordered the opening of a second set of doors which led into the main atrium of the base. Maya felt the air conditioner and saw the flicker of the fluorescent lights overhead, wondering how long they’d be able to power the luxuries of the world as it had existed before.

The atrium sat in the middle of a hub with hallways branching out like the spokes of a wheel. Each hallway had a colored flag above it, which didn’t appear to be part of the base’s protocol, but something they’d added after the space had become a fort and safe haven from the invasion.

Nobody spoke as Gerald led them down the “blue” hallway, where Maya began to notice “normal” people—those in “civies” as Gerald had used to say. She figured this must be the part of the base where people had been living. Even though they had clean faces and fresh clothes, she saw desperation in their faces and distrust in the thin smiles as they passed by. She had to remind herself that many people, like Cameron, hadn’t yet had an interaction. They didn’t really understand how bad things had gotten or even what was happening. This wasn’t a tornado drill or a hurricane warning.

Maya heard their voices before she saw them. Her face lit up and her eyes filled with tears. Gerald opened a door to a recreational room, and there they were. Laura was sitting on a sofa, reading a book, and Aiden was playing ping pong.

Laura looked up from the pages before her and her eyes went wide as she threw the book to the floor. “Mom!”

Maya’s daughter shot off the couch and ran to her. Aiden looked over, his jaw-dropping as the ping pong ball zipped by his chin.

Maya spread her arms and Laura leapt into them. She held her daughter tight as Aiden ran over, joining in the group hug.

“I can’t believe you made it here,” Laura said.

Aiden said, “We didn’t know if you were alive or—”

“I’m here now,” Maya said, cutting her son off before he finished the sentence.

Maya closed her eyes, gripping her children. She didn’t try to hold back the tears of joy that ran down her face. Laura sobbed while Aiden kept muttering about how happy he was that she’d made it. After everything she’d been through and all the destruction she’d seen, Maya had finally made it. Nobody knew what the future would bring, and there were no guarantees that tomorrow would come, but she’d made it to her kids, and hadn’t life always been that unpredictable anyway?

After several moments, she opened her eyes. Her grip loosened on Laura and Aiden, and she froze as she finally noticed the figure standing on the other side of the room, holding a ping pong paddle. She stood up straight and tilted her head, wiping the tears from her face.

“Reno?”