They made their way around the perimeter and then headed up one of the wide ramps that connected the inner city to the fields outside. The ramp was much bigger than Jack had originally thought. Logically, he knew how large it was after weeks of careful observation, but that didn’t prepare him for the staggering hugeness of it, looking less like machinery and more like a sloping hillside.
Charlie gave him a nudge. “You ready for this?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“I can take the lead if you want.”
“No. Let’s do this.”
With that, they marched up the ramp single file, and after an uphill hike that felt like an eternity, they were inside. It was instant culture shock. “Keep your heads down,” Jack said, but even he was having a hard time of it.
They moved along, and while everything remained foreign and unbelievable in its own way, Jack thought he was starting to understand what he was looking at. The area was an industrial district, complete with big bulbous buildings that could be warehouses. Another kind of walker lined the streets here, longer and lower to the ground than the ones they knew, with dozens of short, stubby legs supporting multiple pod-compartments. Unless Jack missed his guess, they were tractor-trailers.
flyers filled the air overhead in patterns that mimicked the streets of any large city, but expanded into the third dimension. The fine details of each flyer were slightly different, but they were all basically miniature, open-topped versions of the cuttlefish, zooming around and through the throng of stalagmite-like buildings, and the sprawling network of catwalks which connected them.
The false monks journeyed on, and the industrial district gave way to a business district full of brightly lit store fronts and street vendors loudly hawking their wares. Every alley led to another market overflowing with foot traffic and wafting out strangely delicious smells. They were the smells of fried vegetables and roasted meats.
A residential area came next, complete with terraced stalagmites that were apartment complexes. Parks with oddly complex terrain sat between the apartments, where adolescent jackrabbits played a game like football, but with a weighted rod in place of the ball. One rabbit would fling the staff to another, who would then grip it with the claw on his back and dash across the obstacle-laden field.
Each district was dense in a way that would make even Manhattan in its prime feel jealous, and the traffic grew thicker the deeper they went.
All the while, the infiltrators kept their heads down and did their best to avoid attention. Jack threaded a route that avoided crowds, and even managed to avoid the many street markets. Every now and again, they passed another coven of hooded monks, and they silently waited to be discovered, but the real monks never motioned to them or paid them any mind.
Too many of Jack’s prayers were being answered, and it was starting to make him nervous.
There were many more types of aliens than they’d seen outside. Jackrabbits were plentiful, but the city dwellers were less muscular and sinewy than soldiers, and none wore the black gas-masks. The creatures were playful and lively, and could often be seen talking excitedly and singing in the streets, in brightly colored clothes and jewelry that jingled.
More surprising were the rhinos, who were nearly as common as the jackrabbits. They were so different than the soldiers that Jack didn’t recognize them at first. Civilian rhinos were much closer to humans in size and proportion, with four average-sized arms, faintly striped beige skin, and no armor to speak of. Not a single one had an insect attached to its back either, and their clothes always left their blowholes uncovered.
Even after Jack had decided that these striped creatures were the rhinos, he still had trouble connecting the two. The idea that they grow to five times their original weight, and sprout bulletproof armor was simply too fantastic to believe.
There were other species, but none in numbers approaching the rhinos or jackrabbits. There were great tall aliens that stalked through the crowds as a giraffe walks through tall grass, and other hunched-over, skulking creatures that kept to the shadows, but could occasionally be seen darting from one shelter to the next. The strangest thing the Bravos saw was a floating animal with a gelatinous sack for a body, which appeared to be filled with other, smaller creatures swimming around inside of it. He was like a living aquarium, and it was anyone’s guess if either he or his inhabitants were intelligent.
They never saw a pilot anywhere, but with the number of vehicles flitting about, their numbers were obviously healthy. It also occurred to Jack after a couple kilometers that he’d seen several groups of monks, but had yet to see any of that species outside of their robes. He filed that away as another mystery he would likely never answer.
Then they came to the generator complex. It was impossible to miss, a massive column of twisting fibers which extended from the floor to the canopy above. It was thicker at either end and thinner in the middle, like a sticky bridge of fluid slowly pulled apart. Glowing amber cables sprouted everywhere on its surface, and extended out toward the rest of the city like creeping ivy.
The Bravos huddled in the neighborhood just before the generator, where foot traffic grew thin. It wasn’t obvious how to get into the facility, or if there even was an entrance. From the looks of things, they might as well have been looking for a door on a tree trunk.
In a hushed voice, Nikitin said, “I don’t see a damn doorway, Jack.”
“If there’s no way in, the mission’s a bust, chief. Our charges wouldn’t even dent that thing.” Trash wasn’t a problem solver. He got jobs done when directed, but any deviation from the plan stopped him dead in his tracks. Where he picked up demolition skills before joining the Corps was a total mystery, as was his terrible nickname.
Jack tilted his head back and looked up the great height of the thing. He didn’t even want to guess at how tall it was, because it dwarfed every skyscraper he’d ever seen. Still, the glowing cables made for interesting terrain, and there appeared to be plenty of hand-holds and ledges. Did he just think what he thought he thought?
As Jack second guessed his fleeting idea, one of the flyers high above slowed and entered a tunnel in the facility’s side. The angle from the floor made the entrance itself invisible.
“Who’s got some climbing experience?”
“You didn’t just ask that,” Nikitin said.
Albright, Trash, and one of the demo men raised their hands. “Good. Looks like there’s a docking port for flyers up there. That’s where we’re getting in. There isn’t another option. The rest of you stay behind. Stick to the shadows, and be ready to get the hell out. Clear?”
“Clear,” they all said.
Just then, Jack noticed a pair of rhinos walking in their direction and he motioned for his team to shut up. The two creatures, an adult and child, walked right past the circle of false monks and stopped at the street corner a couple paces away. The adult, a female, pulled out a glowing crystal and looked deep into it, while the child stared up at the mess of traffic above.
Then the young rhino turned and looked right at Jack, and he knew it saw his face. Its big, bright eyes showed surprise, and then it smiled and waved to him. It tugged its mother’s hand, but Jack raised his finger to his mouth in a silent hush. To his amazement, the motion was understood.
The small rhino giggled and waved again, then its mother put the crystal away and started walking, pulling her child along behind her.
Jack heard Albright’s voice in his memory, from the day she dissected the alien specimens. “I haven’t identified everything yet, but most of it’s more like us than not.”