Falling Stars, Rising Hopes

Tensions Rising

                                                                    Chapter 6

    From what Tanya could gather, there were about four hundred people in the base, not including the people permanently staffed there, so the base was fairly crowded. She spent most of her free time that first week exploring the base, beginning with the front desk, since it was attached to the parking garage. The room was filled with screens. People stood and sat and paced around, all the while writing furiously on something, usually virtual keyboards. Their voices overlapped in a flood of information.

    “Yes, that’s right…I said procedure seventy, not procedure seventeen... Seven-zero, I said, didn’t you hear me the first three times?!…There’s nothing we can do…Government policy…Where are those people, anyway? Base 132?! How in the world are we supposed to get messages to Base 132? That’s over in California!” No one noticed Tanya skirting the edge of the room. They were too busy shouting at their earpieces and each other.

    From there, she went to the mess hall. It was a large room, with seven printers lined along one of the side walls. After that, she peered into some of the tiny rooms that served as their sleeping areas, neatly divided into two halls by gender. She’d seen her own room, of course, but was curious to see what other people had brought with them. Not much. Like hers, most of the rooms were bare except for a few trinkets lying around. The communal closets, on the other hand, were huge and stuffed, but neatly organized by size and category of clothing. If Tanya hadn’t known better, she might have thought she was looking into a very small clothing store.

    While the bedroom sections were almost empty, since it was the middle of the day, the common room was even more crowded than the front desk. Almost everyone not at work was there, milling around for a better look at an entrancing hologram or the latest report on the rats’ invasion. Tanya didn’t spend much time there. She preferred small groups of people to large ones, and found the news of the rats incredibly depressing. After all, what was cheerful about listening to your enemies’ unstoppable advance?

    The heart of it all was the Nexus, just past the common room. It was the center of the base, and a crossroads. The four corridors, north, south, east, and west. Tanya had seen a map of the base a few times, and it reminded her of a fancy braid with some of the hair escaping, since each section was a slanted grid of hallways of different lengths. The overall effect was as if someone had taken four loose braids, stuck them together at the Nexus, then laid them flat again.

    Wandering down the northern corridor, the information room was to Tanya’s right. About twenty people stared at screens, perfectly silent, their fingers twitching out commands, George among them. Tanya could see one full screen, and parts of several others. Lines of text scrolled across them at a remarkable, almost terrifying, rate. How could anyone read that fast? she wondered. Unless they’re just trying to skim it. But it’s moving really fast, even for skimming.

    Then she realized the truth. They were trying to transfer as much information as they could before the rats destroyed the main computers in Washington D.C. Seeing them there, focused, grim, and terrified, brought home to Tanya exactly how bad this was, like something out of a nightmare. She backed away, feeling like she had been caught eavesdropping.

    Past that was the door to her job, the only one made of metal. The fingerprint scanner sat almost exactly in the center of the door, an eye peering out into the hallway, guarding the room’s secrets from those not allowed to know the truth. The base inhabitants called it the magic door, and Tanya approved of the name. The cats did seem like magic, full of the personality and charm only they could even dream of possessing. She was so lucky to get to work with them.

    Past the magic door, at the very end of the hallway, was what the base inhabitants were already calling the mouse hole. It was the secondary escape route, only wide enough for two people at a time, hence the name. Her shift was about to start, so she went back to the magic door, tapped the sensor, and went inside.

    Several cats were missing, with only a note stuck to their cages as explanation.

    “Attention,” it said. “This cat has been taken for surgery. They are not to be disturbed for eight hours after they return. Report any strange behavior to Dr. Daniels IMMEDIATELY.” Tanya wondered why, if these cats were supposed to be fighters, six needed some sort of surgery done first. Maybe it was some kind of strength-enhancing procedure. She shrugged and set to work. At least she didn’t have to keep track of them while she cleaned their cages.

    The first week blended into the first month. The rats’ invasion spread. Chaos reigned as governments vainly tried to restore order among the overcrowded bases. The death tolls rose higher and higher as the rats swept through cities, towns, and villages all over the world. They even found a couple of bases and tore them apart, killing everyone inside.

    The last computer hub in North America, hidden deep in the Rocky Mountains, went down on June 8th. The last light-pole was destroyed three days later, one month to the day since the rats came. But the lack of obvious prey didn’t stop them. Nothing did. Nothing would, until there was nothing left for them to eat. Or so they thought. The old-fashioned radio in the common room blared almost non-stop from six in the morning to midnight with reports of close calls, new dead on both sides, and new destruction.

    Even his computer genius couldn’t stop George from being swamped with millions of images from the satellites. Most of their operators had died, and there weren’t enough people to pick up the slack. There was an entire room full of screens devoted to tracking the rats’ movements, and several staff members devoted to recording them. The new reality the aliens had given them was a watchful, worried one, where bad news was expected and good news was celebrated as the rarity it suddenly was.

    One disturbing video that circulated through the bases caught a rat going through the rubble of Cape Town, overturning crashed hovercars with a flick of a paw and poking its snout through barely-standing doorways as if looking for something. Ceramic dust flew up from under its paws, but the video had no sound. It paused to sharpen its teeth on an exposed pipe, then carried on. Finally, it found what it was looking for. A human skeleton, sprawled out on one side, hand reaching for help that would never come. They must have been killed during the first few days, when meat was so plentiful, the rats didn’t bother eating the bones. This rat looked around for others that might steal its bounty, then settled down to feast. Thankfully, the video ended before it actually started eating. It made Tanya realize yet again how lucky she was. If she hadn’t decided to bring Handful to the meteor shower, she would never have met George, and could very well have been one of those skeletons.

    After a month and a half, her job was just as enjoyable as always, but something about it seemed strange to Tanya. By this time, most of the cats had undergone at least one surgery, and most of those had had two or more. So far as Tanya could figure out, the surgeries were focused on the poor cats’ necks, which was strange. A few were bald all down the fronts of their necks, from the base of their skull to their collarbones. Tanya was tempted to learn how to knit so she could make them some scarves. The poor things were probably freezing.

    One month became two, and the rats began to breed. Data trickled in from those lucky enough to kill one. The largest were eight feet tall at the shoulder, and almost twenty feet long including the tail. They could eat basically anything, although they seemed to prefer metal, and there weren’t enough supplies to poison all of them. As if that weren’t enough, they seemed to be somewhat intelligent. None of the humans’ strategies seemed to work twice in the same area. Every time the radio reported a new failure, the tension seemed to double. Even the children sensed it. Normally shrieking voices were held to a whisper, feet that always ran plodded along the corridors. Everyone just sat in the common room and waited, for what, they had no idea.

    It was in those times that Mr. Valencia stepped up. He always lightened the base’s mood, although never in the way he intended. The monthly meetings were always depressing, full of losses, disasters, and failing hopes. So, at the end of each one, he would give a speech about how important everyone was, and how they had a very important role in rebuilding society. And it did make everyone feel better. Except for Mr. Valencia himself.

    The speech he made on July 11, 2164 was a typical example. “It’s been two months,” he began. “Two months ago today, our world began to collapse, but naturally, none of us knew it at the time. That’s how it always happens. You can never tell you’re sliding until you’re at the bottom of a hole, and then you’re stuck, and can’t get back out.

    “The remains of government around the world are doing their best to get rid of these giant rats. To them, of course, ‘their best’ means sitting around their little radios insulting each other and occasionally sending someone up to see if the rats are nearby. And it serves them right if they are. We, on the other hand, have not been idle.”

    “Oh, spare me,” someone in the audience muttered, but was quickly hushed. Tanya suspected it was Jason Nanterre, known for his sarcasm and disrespect for authority. It wouldn’t be the first time he and Valencia had clashed.

    “We have been doing our part as loyal American citizens to support our government,” Mr. Valencia continued, either not noticing the interruption or ignoring it. “We have gathered all the information we could and shipped it out as needed. It was through our work and our diligence that this many people have been saved! We, not the government, not the military, but we are the ones who hold the world’s future in our hands! And does the government support us, help us, even recognize our existence? No! All the politicians out there are playing their favorite game of pretending they’ve done everything themselves. But we know better. We know better. And we help them anyway! Because that’s what it means to be American. Doing your job, no matter what. If you get credit, good. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. Because Americans don’t seek credit. We don’t go around gloating over how good we are. We-”

    “Of course we don’t.” The same voice cut in. It was definitely Jason. In Tanya’s opinion, he must have wandered off exploring when the tact was handed out, and missed his share. “You do all the gloating and bragging for us. What?” he asked. Everyone in the room, even his friends, who ought to be used to it, was staring at him like he’d grown a second head. He shrugged, shoulders brushing his far too long black hair. “It’s true. Every time that man opens his mouth, he does this whole ‘The common people are the true source of power’ speech celebrating how we’re not part of the horrible, corrupted, useless government. ‘We are the keystone of human survival,’” he mocked, making finger quotes. “So, keep running like good little hamsters on your incredibly important hamster wheels that were designed just for you.” Jason leaned back in his chair, clearly pleased with his little speech. There was dead silence for about three seconds before Mr. Valencia started yelling his head off.

    “You ungrateful little brat!” he screamed. “How dare you say such things about me! I was the Director of Intelligence before this all happened. I advised the President, and my advice was taken! The leaders of this country respected what I had to say. What were you, eh? Some little nobody curled up in an office, recognized for your typing skills and nothing else? Who took your advice, roaches? Nobody with a single brain cell in their skull would listen to you. How can you come up to me and say you’re better than me?! I bet you’ve never done a single day’s work in your entire life!”

    “And you have?” Jason asked insolently. Tanya wanted to bang their heads together and order them to be quiet. They both needed to be taken down a peg or two.

    “Of course I have! I have worked for every scrap of prestige that I have collected! You wouldn’t know what to do with prestige if someone gave it to you on a silver platter! You would probably just toss it in the trash, not understanding what a gift it is to be recognized!”

    “And yet, you just said that Americans don’t care about recognition, they do their jobs anyway. Interesting.” He was being almost dangerously obstinate. Tanya was starting to worry that one or both of them would be heading to the infirmary soon. Although, in Mr. Valencia’s case, that might very well be because he had a stroke.

    “Don’t use my own words against me!”

    “Would you rather I use other peoples’?” Jason’s mood suddenly switched to fury. “Can’t you understand?” he demanded. “This is reality. Your fancy title and vast experience aren’t important anymore! This,” he swept his hand around the room, “is our new reality. Stop pretending the old one still exists.”

    “How dare you say my life doesn’t matter? I was working for the government before you were even born! You’re nothing more than a stubborn little brat who wouldn’t know what work was if it bit him!” Mr. Valencia sputtered. Jason looked him in the eye, anger fading to an icily insolent facade.

    “You already said that. Now, can we get back to the meeting, or are you going to stand there sputtering all day?” he asked, as if he hadn’t been yelling thirty seconds before. Mr. Valencia did a bit more sputtering, then stalked off the stage.

    “Your turn,” he muttered to the next official in line.