lamp threw heavy shadows across the communal room, and across the four men who occupied it. Jason immediately recognized Jorge Mendoza, pacing across the room, his expression reflecting a conflict of fear and indignation as he faced the others.
Two of them were muscle, plain and simple: big, menacing bruisers armed with Close Assault Weapons Systems—what the grunts in the Corps called “super-shotguns.” The last man was much less physically imposing than the other two, not much bigger than Jorge, but clearly the leader from the tone of his voice.
“I have not come here to argue with you, my friend,” the man continued, seemingly calmer. Jason struggled to get a glimpse of his face, but he was leaning on a corner table, his upper body wreathed in shadows. “The time has come for us all to band together and overthrow the bourgeoisie oppressors. We have been handed a golden opportunity and we must not hesitate!”
“But the aliens…” Jorge shook his head.
“The Invaders will not be an obstacle,” the other man advised him. “We have had reports from scouts we’ve sent out that they have ceased their attacks and abandoned their looting of the city. Some of their troops still wander the streets of Kennedy, but they have no direction and many of them have died. Juan Ortiz travelled out to the port and found it completely destroyed. Now is the time! Before the Fleet can send reinforcements and crush us under their heel once again!” He rose from his leaning position to make the last point, gesturing emphatically with his fist, and finally emerged into the light.
The face that light revealed was weathered and cracked with age, maned with an unruly mop of salt-and- pepper grey. For a heartbeat, Jason still couldn’t place the middle-aged, bearded face, but it was the fire behind those dark eyes that finally sparked the recognition. The man was none other than Miguel Huerta, the emigrant success story whom he’d met less than three weeks before as the chairman of the Independent Farmer’s Council… and an old, dear friend of Valerie O’Keefe.
Shit. This, he knew, was not good at all. Grandfather McKay had an old saying appropriate to situations like this: something about getting the fuck out of Dodge, he recalled. He was fully prepared to follow that sage piece of advice when something interfered: something hard and unyielding that slammed into the back of his head. Jason’s pistol fell from suddenly-strengthless fingers and he dropped forward to his knees, a polychromatic flare filling his vision, his head exploding with blinding pain. He swayed on his knees like a sapling in a gale, and then the unseen bludgeon cracked across his jaw and the spiralling colors faded to black.
In the beginning, God created Jason McKay’s head. And the head was without form and void; and darkness was upon his thoughts. And then God sneered wickedly and said, “Let there be
That was when he heard the scream. His eyes popped open and his head jerked around toward the noise, igniting a blinding flash of agony at the base of his skull. Stars danced across his vision for an endless second, and even when they cleared the scene before him only clarified a piece at a time through his pain-fogged brain. He was, he saw immediately, inside the farmhouse—thrown into a dark corner of the kitchen like a sack of potatoes. His feet were stretched out before him, bound with cords, and he could feel the same rope biting into his wrists behind his back. Huddled in a corner across from him were Carmella Mendoza and her children, the woman seeming even more frightened and shaky than her two little daughters—not frightened of him, but of the scene that was playing out before them.
It was, as he had feared, Valerie who had screamed. She was being dragged into the house by two of what Jason now painfully realized were
“So nice of you to stop by, Ms. O’Keefe,” he said, waving to her in mock greeting as his men brought her before him. “I never thought to see you again after our visitors from space burned down the governor’s mansion.”
“Miguel!” She recognized him for the first time, her eyes flying open, a look of relief coming over her face. “Thank God it’s you! Tell them to let me go.” She tried to jerk her wrists free from the men holding her, but their hold was too strong.
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be prudent, my dear,” he said, stepping up to her, shoving McKay’s pistol into his waistband. “This
“We?” Val’s voice was full of disbelief. “Miguel, you can’t mean that you were involved with that man Gomez.”
“Carlos was a friend,” Huerta admitted easily. “But he was careless and sloppy. I told him he should have put a dead-man switch on that bomb, but he said we didn’t have time… and he paid the price.”
“But…” She shook her head helplessly. “He would have killed me.”
“That was not the plan, but had it been necessary, I’m sure he would have,” the man agreed readily. “You are like all the others,
“That’s not true!” She shook her head angrily, close to tears. “I’ve tried to help your people!”
“For which you have our humble thanks,” Huerta sneered. “Now, it is time for us to help ourselves. But I have no taste for political arguments at this late date. Now is the time for action, not argument. Our course is clear, and you are but a tool.” He smiled, moving even closer to her, caressing the softness of her cheek with the fingers of his right hand. “And tools are meant to be used.” His left hand slipped under his jacket at the small of his back and produced a long-bladed hunting knife, holding it centimeters in front of her face as his right hand seized the back of her neck.
Valerie shrieked in horror, trying to jerk away from her captors, but they held her fast as Huerta ran the flat of the knife across her cheek almost lovingly. Flinching away from the cold metal, she bit her lip to keep from crying out again, but the shaking of her shoulders betrayed her fear. Huerta chuckled, enjoying the dread in her eyes as he brought the knife down her throat to her chest. With one, swift, savage motion, he hooked the knife in her shirt and slashed downward, ripping the garment apart and drawing a sharp, startled cry from the woman.
Jason struggled against his bonds, but he was still groggy and weak from the concussion, and the ropes held fast. Jorge Mendoza, however, had finally decided that this was more than he could put up with and moved forward, grabbing Huerta’s arm and pulling him away from the woman.
“No, Miguel!” He stared the older man in the face, eyes on fire with righteous indignation. “You cannot do this! She has never done anything to hurt you or the movement.”
“Do not tell me what I can and cannot do, Mendoza!” Huerta jerked away from him angrily. “You would do well not to forget your place!”
“My place?” Jorge repeated, eyebrows going up. “You speak like a
“You fool.” Huerta yanked the pistol from his belt and shoved it into the man’s chest hard enough to drive him back a step. “Whatever gave you the idea we were better than them?” And without a word of warning, Miguel Huerta pulled the trigger.
Jason jerked in surprise at the ear-popping roar of the pistol, watching as Jorge’s face screwed up in shock and pain. The farmer looked down at his chest, staring in disbelief at the smoking hole in his shirt, gushing a flowing stream of blood. He stood there for a long moment, seemingly unaffected; but then he staggered back a step, clutching at his chest, and collapsed backward to the floor.
There was silence for the space of a heartbeat as even Huerta’s men seemed surprised at what their leader had done, but the still was shattered by the keening wail of Carmella Mendoza as she rushed across the room to fall at her husband’s side, cradling his head in her hands. Even from where he lay, Jason could tell that the man wasn’t breathing.
