MacAlister moved to Jacob’s side and took the bottle from his hands. “I think you’ve had just about enough, mate.”
Jacob looked up at the soldier. “I think you could be right,” he said, before letting out a long braying laugh.
“So the rain, the creatures I saw, the alien trees?” Emily said.
The effects of the drink were quickly robbing Jacob of his faculties and his words were becoming indistinguishable.
“That, my dear, dear Emily, is the interesting part. This is just a theory, mind you, so don’t you hold me to it in the morning—” he let out another long laugh “—but I think that the rain was some kind of biological super nanotechnology. How it got here, I have nooooo idea, but it took every carbon-based life form on this planet, disassembled it molecule by molecule, and then reassembled it in whatever shape it wanted.”
Jacob jabbed at the ceiling with the index finger of his left hand. When he next spoke his voice was conspiratorial. “It gave us what you saw out there. A new world. Their world.” He stared at his hand still pointing at the ceiling. “I mean, do you have even the slightest inkling of what that means? Whatever did this to the world is so far ahead of us technologically, it might just as well be God.” He slowly lowered his hand to his lap and turned to face Emily. “I do not feel so good,” he said, his face suddenly turning a shade of green.
“Don’t worry,” said MacAlister with a sigh, “I’ll take care of him. Come on.” He began pushing Jacob out of the room toward the scientist’s cabin. “I’ll get him to his room.”
“We should all be afraid,” Jacob yelled as the Scotsman wheeled him away. “We should all be really fucking afraid.”
“He’ll sleep soundly tonight,” said MacAlister when he returned from taking Jacob to his room. “I expect he’ll have a bit of a hangover in the morning, though.”
“Let’s assume his theory is correct,” Emily said, picking up the conversation where they’d left off before the interruption. “Does it really change anything for us?”
“Our primary objective has not changed. We still need to find a place to pitch our tent, so to speak. Point Loma seems to me to be as good a place as any to do that, wouldn’t you say?”
“From what Commander Mulligan has told us, the chances of finding anywhere unaffected by the storm seem pretty slim and growing slimmer by the day. And if Jacob is right we might be running out of time faster than we know,” Emily said. “And since we’re already here…”
The captain nodded. “Mr. MacAlister, I’d like you to take two men you know can handle themselves and go take a look around our new home. Report back to me if we need to call in a fumigator or not.”
“I’d like to go ashore with them,” Emily interjected.
“Not this time,” MacAlister replied. “Leave it to the experts for now.”
“But—” she began to object.
“No buts, Ms. Baxter,” said the captain. “My men know what they’re doing and you would be nothing but a liability at this point, I’m afraid. Please just let them do their job.”
Emily couldn’t argue with his logic, but the itch to get off the submarine, to stretch her legs on solid ground again was surprisingly strong, even to her. Or maybe it was something else? Even though MacAlister was a professional soldier and had undoubtedly survived numerous firefights and life-threatening situations during his time in the Special Boat Service, she found herself worrying about him. She was the only one with any direct experience of just how alien the world out there really was and how dangerous the creatures that wandered through it could be. And she still was not convinced that even with the evidence they had all seen topside that anyone really believed her warnings.
“Alright then, let’s get this show on the road shall we?” MacAlister said, with a clap of his hands and an eager smile, signaling the discussion was over. He moved toward the door.
“MacAlister!” She grabbed the man’s elbow as he walked away. “Be careful. It’s more dangerous than you can possibly imagine out there.”
Emily had expected him to fire back with one of his huge grins and dismiss her warning; instead his face became almost unrecognizable, cold even, grim, and for the first time she saw the warrior who lingered just below the surface of the gentle, funny man she had come to know. When his smile did return it was accompanied with one of his trademark corny quips: “Don’t worry, my middle name is danger.” He paused as the smile spread into the grin she had expected. “Actually, it’s Colin, but if you tell anyone I’ll never bloody talk to you again.”
And with that, he was out the door.
MacAlister picked two sailors to accompany him.
Emily watched nervously from the observation deck of the conning tower as the heavily armed men hauled a large, black rubber dinghy onto the deck, attached a powerful-looking outboard motor to it, and dropped it into the water alongside the sub. MacAlister gave her a thumbs-up before leaping into the boat after his men and speeding off toward the beach.
For the next two hours Emily watched as MacAlister and his men methodically moved from building to building, securing each one before moving on to the next. By the time they completed their initial search of the final building, it had become obvious that the base was completely deserted.
MacAlister’s voice crackled over the radio: “Area is secure and ready to accept its new tenants.”
Captain Constantine nodded silently then adjusted the radio frequency: “Attention all hands: Security team and shore parties, make your way to the deck immediately.”
MacAlister and one of his team stayed on land, positioning themselves on the rooftops of the two tallest buildings, watching over the compound, their weapons held at the ready while the third sailor brought the dinghy back to the sub.
The Vengeance’s crew emerged from the belly of the submarine via a hatch that exited onto the deck, chattering excitedly as they shaded their eyes from the bright California sun. But as they spotted the extraordinary transformation that had taken place on land, Emily heard a wave of expletives from the milling crowd of sailors followed by a stunned silence as each new pair of eyes inevitably became fixed on the distant shoreline.
The captain addressed his dumbfounded men from the conning tower. “Alright! Pull yourselves together,” he called out. “You’ll have plenty of time to stare when you are on shore. In the meantime, you have a job to do, and I expect you to do it. Now get on with it.”
At his command, the sailors’ training kicked in and one after another they returned to their allotted tasks. Within minutes a large pile of supplies in waterproof containers had piled up on the deck. A second dinghy was manhandled up top and dropped into the ocean next to the first.
A security team, heavily armed and looking as nervous as Emily felt, took the first boat back to shore. They headed to a building near the center of the compound identified by MacAlister’s team as the best suited to become the survivors’ new living quarters.
By the time the second boat full of sailors hit the shore Emily, Rhiannon, and Thor were next in line, their backpacks and a couple of boxes of supplies resting next to them on the gently dipping deck of the sub.
“Where’s Jacob?” Rhiannon asked.
“He’s asleep,” Emily lied. “He’ll be coming over later.” The truth was, Jacob was still in his cabin, still drunk from earlier, but the captain had told Emily it was probably better to just let him sleep it off.