“You know,” a voice remarked, “there’s little sillier than a drunken policeman.”
Robin’s eyes snapped open. He’d been alone. Unlike some of the other policemen, he had no intention of bringing a whore back to his flat. He still loved his wife, despite everything — and besides, at least some of the whores had murdered their policemen and vanished into the underground. No one loved the police these days. Through his rather hazy vision, he saw a young Asian man standing by the door, wearing a policeman’s uniform. Robin didn’t recognise him — and there was something about the way he wore his uniform that suggested that he wasn’t a policeman at all. But someone wearing a policeman’s uniform could walk around the complex without being questioned…
“Don’t worry,” the man said. “I’m not here to kill you.”
“Right,” Robin growled. His head felt as if someone had smashed it with a brick, repeatedly. Mixing the different kinds of alcohol had probably been a mistake. It was hard to form words in his mind, let alone say them out loud. “What do you want then?”
“My name is… well, they’ve been calling me Abdul,” the man said. Despite his light, almost flippant tone, his brown eyes never left Robin’s face. “You may have heard of me. I believe the reward on my head is currently enough luxury food to keep someone eating for the next few months.”
The name seemed to shock Robin out of his drunken haze. Of course he’d heard of Abdul — he was supposed to be one of the ringleaders behind the resistance, linking together groups as disparate as National Front racists and Islamic Fundamentalists. The name had been mentioned by captured insurgents during their interrogation, but none of them had known where Abdul based himself. Some policemen had thought that the name was a joke, yet the aliens had taken it seriously. The reward on Abdul’s head was massive.
“Don’t worry, they don’t know I’m here,” Abdul assured him. One hand rubbed the uniform, mockingly. “It’s amazing how many people spy the uniform and don’t look past it to the face.”
“We don’t know what you look like,” Robin managed. Up close, Abdul was almost unmemorable. He had no beard, but otherwise he could simply have faded into the crowd and vanished. Bearded Asian men had often been targeted by the aliens, purely on suspicion. One of Robin’s fellow policemen had joked that the aliens found beards intimidating because they couldn’t grow them themselves. “And now… why are you here?”
“I was told that you might know where some weapons are stashed,” Abdul said, lightly. “I think that it is time we talked, don’t you?”
Robin staggered to his feet and stumbled over to the shower. The water in London was often turned off and then on again by the aliens, purely to remind Londoners who was in charge, but there was never any problem with the water in police complexes. He turned the knob and blasted cold water over his head, shocking himself awake. Part of him wanted to sound the alert and call for help, but the rest of him… if Abdul knew that Robin had been involved in hiding weapons, what else did he know? It wouldn’t take much to alert the aliens to his betrayal — and they’d definitely see it as a betrayal. All weapons were supposed to have been surrendered to them.
“Fuck,” he said, as his mind finally caught up with him. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter?” Abdul asked. “All that really matters is that we need to talk.”
Drying up the water dripping from his hair gave Robin a moment to think. He hadn’t been the only copper involved in hiding weapons, and two of the ones who had had deserted after the first riots. One or both of them could have found Abdul and shared confidences with him, naming Robin as someone who had hoped that he would be in the position to do something about the aliens one day. But that day had never come…
“Very well,” he said. “What do we have to talk about?”
“You know that the aliens won’t ever leave on their own,” Abdul said. “Do you really believe that that collaborator asshole they have speaking for them can influence them in any way?”
“No,” Robin said. He’d never trusted Alan Beresford, even when he’d been MP for Haltemprice rather than a collaborator claiming to be Prime Minister. The man smiled too much, among his many other failings. There had been rumours of shady dealings, but nothing had ever been proven. And now it was too late. “Do you believe that fighting them will make them give up and go away?”
“It’s all we have left,” Abdul commented. “You do know that the Vietnamese drove the Americans away after years of inconclusive warfare?”
“Years,” Robin grated. It felt almost as if the aliens had always been on Earth. Had it really been less than two months? “Do you think that we can keep fighting them until they give up and leave us in peace? Or simply drop a massive rock on our heads and slaughter the remaining humans on Earth?”
“There’s little other choice,” Abdul said. He leaned forwards, warningly. “We need your help to hit them, policeman. Think about your people and join us.”
Robin hesitated. “My wife…”
“We can get her out of their reach,” Abdul assured him. “We’ll fake her death and hide her in one of our bases. All it needs is for you to decide which side you’re on. Do you support your fellow humans, or ugly aliens intent on turning us all into slaves?”
Robin looked down at his hands. How much blood was on them? How many had died, at least in part, because of him and his fellow collaborators? The aliens had slaughtered humans when protest marches had gotten out of hand, to say nothing of threatening mass slaughter to get one of their captives back. And they’d succeeded. The resistance had surrendered their captive, despite endless complaints on the internet that one city was a worthwhile trade for an alien who might finally provide real answers.
“My fellow humans,” he said, finally. He reached for his uniform, feeling a flicker of the old pride he’d felt when he’d first donned it as a fully-fledged policeman. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
Abdul smiled and told him.
“Write a letter to your wife,” he said, afterwards. “We’ll make sure it gets delivered.”
I should be part of the attack force, Alex thought sourly, as she parked the car outside the house. It was situated in one of London’s surrounding towns, a nice place to live if you could afford the rent. I want to hit back at the bastards, not play secret agent…
Most of her wounds were healing, thankfully, but the medics had been insistent that she should avoid actual fighting for at least another month or two. Alex had pointed out that they could hardly send someone back home to recuperate when the aliens had occupied the entire country, yet they’d been insistent. She’d been tortured, raped and abused and she really needed time to recover. They seemed to expect her to break down at any moment, rather than being determined to get back out there and keep righting the Leathernecks. The doctor had strongly urged her to go to the Highlands of Scotland or one of the other long-term resistance bases and had been surprised when she’d refused.
She climbed out of the car, ignoring the handful of sharp glances from pedestrians as she locked the door behind her. Only collaborators had fuel for cars these days; the aliens hadn’t touched this part of Britain as much as they’d touched London, but their presence was keenly felt. They had a base only a few miles away, part of the ring of steel surrounding London proper. She touched the Browning she’d stuffed into her coat pocket — just in case, even though she had papers that should have fooled the aliens — and walked up to the house. There was the faint sound of music coming from inside.