Chris Randolph - Stars Rain Down

Jack held out the food. “Gotta eat. Need strength to fight ‘em.”

The yellow-eyed man reached out with a shaking hand, took the food and returned to hiding behind his knees. It was a first step, and Jack returned to his own side of the cell, mindful not to push too hard.

He exercised until dinner came, then again portioned out food and brought it to the other man, who took it and went back to hiding behind his knees.

Jack finished his own food fast and skipped that evening’s exercise regimen. He tried to sleep with one eye open but didn’t get much rest, only managing to sleep for short bursts before waking in fits of heart-thumping paranoia. It was hard to be sure, but he didn’t think the other guy slept much either.

The next day, he went about his morning exercises as usual until lunch rolled around, and then made another attempt at diplomacy. He gathered up a handful of food and delivered it to the huddled-up man, and said, “Heya, food time.”

The other grunted and took it.

“You speak English?”

The man’s eyes were full of fear and confusion. He stared at Jack for a long time while he nibbled at the food like a rat. “A little,” he finally said.

“Hey. That’s great. Really great. I’m Jack. What’s your name?”

The other glanced around like he thought someone else might be listening. “Kai,” he said. “My name’s Kai.”

“Please to meetcha, Kai.”

Jack had known a fellow named Kai who was from Finland. He looked at this new Kai, and he honestly couldn’t figure out what ethnicity the guy might be. He had the most forgettable face Jack had ever seen. “Are you from Finland?” he asked.

“Yeah. Puhutko suomea?”

“What? Um… I don’t speak Finnish.”

“Oh.”

Silence, and Jack was kind of glad for it. He didn’t remember conversations being such a damn struggle. “So… How’d you get here?”

Kai shook his head. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s right, right. Okay. Sorry. But you’re okay, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… ummm,” Jack droned, “I uhhh… I’m just gonna go back to doin’ what I was doin’. Stay cool, right? Right.”

Jack didn’t used to repeat himself so much before his incarceration. He’d have to work on that.

He went back to his exercise, and attacked it with a renewed vigor. It’d been months since he last saw another human being, and he never imagined how important other people were to him. Better still, he’d made some headway this time. The sense of accomplishment was more filling than a home cooked meal.

When dinner rolled around, Kai met him at the dispenser and they both ate like ravenous animals. The feeding frenzy might have lacked culture, but it was better than being alone. Anything short of torture was better than being alone, and over the following weeks, things improved.

”…and when the time came, I couldn’t do it. I refused to have millions of deaths on my head, alien or not. In return for my mercy, I ended up here.”

“No kidding. What did you do before the invasion?”

“I was ERC,” Jack said, but Kai looked confused. Then Jack was confused, too. He was sure everyone knew about the ERC. “Emergency Response Corps? Global do-gooders. Firefighters and medics and stuff.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Didn’t recognize the name.”

“S’alright.”

“You were a firefighter?”

Jack shook his head and made big motions with his hands. “No, no, no. Those guys are crazy. The smokejumpers especially. Man, skydiving and firefighting. Might as well jam your hand in a blender. No, I was search and rescue. Tracked down lost hikers and mountain climbers. That kinda stuff.”

“A lot of need for that?”

“Some. Not really. We spent most of our time backing up other teams, like those crazy ass smokejumpers.”

Kai let out an awkward chuckle, then got a weird look on his face.

Jack said, “What? Why are you giving me that look?”

“I don’t know. I thought you were a soldier for some reason.”

“Nope. Not until the shit hit the fan, at least. Used to be against war of any kind. Hurting people, pain and suffering. That stuff was the enemy. I was a true believer, but the invasion changed my outlook I guess.”

“True believer?”

“In the mission, man. I helped people, and it’s all I wanted to do. I didn’t care who. Just help ‘em, ya know? It was a different time.”

“Yeah. Ever changing world, right?”

“How about you, Kai? What’d you used to do?”

“A lot of things. Construction mostly. I was building an offshore drilling platform when it happened.”

“Musta been nice. Out on the oceans and all that. The bastards probably didn’t pay much attention to you guys.”

“Not at first. Took them months to come out for us. Where were you when it happened?”

“In the sky.”

“What?”

“Sorry. The Corps… they flew us into China after the first strike, while the invasion was still happening. We didn’t know what the hell was going on, and next thing I know, I’m in a busted ass helicopter falling out of low orbit.”

“Intense.”

“Yeah, I guess so. We crashed in the dust cloud, and hit the ground running. Just kept moving and gathering survivors, hoping to find some place that wasn’t toast. We saw so many dead, though.” Corpses piled up in Jack’s head. “So damn many dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Kai said.

“No. No, it’s alright. They… they didn’t have to survive this crap. They were the lucky ones.”

Kai nodded, and then neither spoke for a long time. It had taken them a while to get to this point, and Jack suspected Kai had suffered more torture than he had. The man was just short of catatonic when he arrived, but after the first week, he came back to life. He was a fast healer, too. Bruises had already faded to hints of their former glory, and he didn’t look half as gaunt. His eyes were still discolored, but Jack chalked that up to allergies or malnutrition.

“Listen,” Kai said quietly and moved closer, “did they ever ask you about the… the Nefrem?”

Jack couldn’t figure out why Kai was acting so cloak and dagger. Maybe he knew something about the prison cells that Jack didn’t. “Constantly,” he said, and shuddered at the memory of the torture sessions. “Wish I had any damn idea what a Nefrem was. It’d make stonewalling them that much more satisfying.”

“Yeah.”

“And all that talk about a battle fleet. Did he mean in space?”

“I guess.”

“I just don’t get it,” Jack said. “I mean, if we had a secret fleet, wouldn’t we have used it to protect ourselves? These sons of bitches roll over us in five minutes and then have the gall to ask where our battle fleet is. It’s like kicking a three year old and then demanding his car keys. I figured he was just messing with my head.”

“Trying to keep us off guard? Makes sense.”

“I don’t know what the hell else it coulda been.”

Kai had a particularly dead look in his eyes. “Who knows. Maybe it’s a case of mistaken identity.”

Jack froze for a second, then laughed so hard it hurt. “Oh God, that’s rich. You, my friend, officially have the bleakest outlook in the whole damned universe.”

Kai asked, “How do you figure?”

“How do I figure? So, big bad space invaders drops trou on our planet and shit all over us. It’s one thing if they’re looking for a new home, or they’re on some kind of religious crusade, out slaughtering infidels, or get this… maybe they’re just mean bastards who can’t stand the sight of us. I can believe any of that. But blotting out ten billion lives by mistake? Like a filing error or something? That would be the most depressing thing in the history of damn depressing things.”