“Fine,” he said, finally. He suspected that one of the reasons that Brent had brought him alone was because he needed support, but he didn’t have any soldier he cared to risk, not when they would be needed in Austin. Joshua was expendable. “Let’s get on with it before I have an attack of brains to the head and realise how dangerous this is.”
Brent swung himself onto the bike and peddled off, Joshua following him a little more uncertainly. It had been years since he’d ridden a bicycle, but it was all coming back to him, if only because he was glad to be out in the fresh air. The smell of vehicles had faded, to be replaced by an ever-present smell of smoke and burning, caused by the fighting. Large parts of the city were destroyed and, for some reason, the aliens hadn’t even started rebuilding them. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, an alien patrol, but ignored them… and was ignored in turn. If they were caught, it wouldn’t be right next to the safe house.
The city’s populations had gone back to bikes in a big way. The aliens didn’t seem to care about people riding bikes, although they tended to stop anyone carrying a large bag, and so everyone was peddling around the city. Brent, Joshua had to admit, had been right; the two of them just blended into everyone else. There was nothing to mark them out as wanted fugitives, not until they reached the checkpoint at the edge of the city. The aliens didn’t let just anyone out, although the internet was buzzing with some odd reports of moments of alien kindness, of all things, and if they were caught…
I could die here, he realised, suddenly. The city had seemed darker and darker as they’d ridden towards the checkpoint. Away from the remainder of the cyclists, it was easier for them to be marked as collaborators and the dirty looks… he was lucky that no one had thrown a stone at them. Brent might have managed to stay on his bike — if he was to be believed, he had managed to cross a river under fire from both sides — but Joshua had no such illusions about himself. A single stone would have pitched him off his bike and into the tender mercies of the aliens or another resistance cell. The aliens, watching them dispassionately, would be delighted to get their hands on him.
The alien checkpoint was simple enough, but Brent had taught him enough for Joshua to pick out the hidden and well-protected machine gun nests, held well back from the road. The resistance had once driven an explosive-laden truck into one of the checkpoints, blowing it up along with all of the guards, and since then the aliens had been rather more careful. They might not be afraid of a pair of cyclists, particularly ones with such good papers, but they wouldn’t take them for granted either.
“Papers,” the lead alien said. As always, there was no way of seeing the alien face behind the mask, or anything to mark him out as the leader. Brent had bemoaned that in one of their brief discussions; standard sniper practice was to pick off the leaders first and it wasn’t easy to identify an alien leader. They didn’t salute or genuflect to each other. “You will present your papers now.”
Joshua was suddenly very aware that they were trapped. “Here,” he said, passing over his ID card. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, so he returned them to the bike handles and squeezed them hard. The collaborator looked enough like Joshua that a little make-up could allow them to pass for one another, but he wouldn’t have been so scared when facing the aliens, not unless his cover was blown. Brent seemed utterly untroubled by the guns pointed at them, while Joshua needed to go to the toilet urgently.
“You may proceed,” the alien said finally, as the gate opened. Joshua almost forgot to recover his ID card before pushing down on the pedals and biking madly out of the city. It was an illusion, but as he breathed in his first breath, he was almost sure that he tasted freedom in the air.
“Not too bad,” Brent said, when they were away from the city. From a distance, Austin looked almost normal, although parts of the skyline had been remodelled by the aliens, with several missing buildings. He could almost believe that the aliens had vanished and the human race was still alone in the universe. Only the complete absence of any moving vehicles and the devastation all around them spoiled the illusion. “You could have handled that worse.”
Joshua glared at him. “I could have handled that worse?”
“Oh, of course,” Brent assured him. “Do you think that a good soldier is automatically a good Special Forces dude?”
“I have honestly never given it much thought,” Joshua said, tightly. He had the shakes badly now and pulled over to calm himself. “What makes you so special?”
“You have to be more than just the best, you have to be willing to play a role, or even to bend the rules,” Brent said, seriously. “Most soldiers are honest people; they won’t lie or even consider lying, particularly in a combat zone. I have worn enemy uniforms and been in places where an American soldier might have shot me. I could have been shot by someone on the same side! You need a special mindset for that and most soldiers don’t have it.”
“Oh,” Joshua said. “Why is it that half the time I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth or lying through your teeth?”
“I’m a very dishonest soldier,” Brent said, with a wink. “That story about the General’s daughter, the Swedish woman’s naked badminton team and the six vats of hot custard was all true, as I live and breathe. Besides, if it weren’t for all the tall tales, terrorists wouldn’t get so scared and do something stupid when they hear we’re after them. Did I ever tell you how I managed to get a terrorist cell to kill itself?”
“No,” Brent said. “Does it have anything to do with those Iranian girls you were telling me about?”
They rode onwards, towards the alien landing sites. Joshua fell silent as the scale of the invasion became clearer, with destroyed vehicles and houses everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Someone, probably work gangs, had cleared the roads of vehicles, but otherwise there had been very little clean-up work done, even removing the bodies. Most of them had been picked clean by now, probably by animals — he didn’t think that the aliens would eat human flesh — but the white skeletons seemed to mock him. They had died, perhaps bravely, perhaps shot in the back… but they had died.
The sight was a bitter reminder. The soldiers had charged that Joshua and other reporters had gotten fat on the carnage caused by fighting, but that hadn’t happened in America, not since the Civil War. The United States had had internal troubles, but there had never been a danger of an invasion and its population had been allowed to forget how unpleasant the world could be. Now, war and devastation had torn the United States apart, with the population fleeing burning cities, carrying what little they could with them.
“We’d better be careful,” Brent warned, as they detoured around a particularly large cluster of destroyed buildings. “I thought they were burying all the bodies, but if they’re leaving them here, they’re probably Club Med for diseases now. We might even catch something really nasty.”
“I would, you mean,” Joshua said, absently. “You’re too tough for any disease.”
The sounds of alien activity had been growing louder, loud enough to convince them that they were close, so they hid the bikes and proceeded on foot, seeking a vantage point. A pair of alien patrols, armed to the teeth, passed them, but seemingly missed picking them out from their surroundings. Brent led the way up the ridge, and then swore softly under his breath. Joshua followed him, careful to keep his head, and peeked over the top. What he saw shocked him.