Invasion turns out to be that simple. Conventional armed forces can, at best, slow or prevent an enemy invasion. That said, most so-called "models" between zero and ten can be defeated with conventional weapons with enough concentrated firepower.
This is good. It gave civilians a chance to find shelter before the samurai arrived.
Um? What if they don't come? Well, then you're screwed, aren't you?
——Professor Asimov, "Lectures on Opposing Threats", New Oxford University 2027
***
I gasped as a red light flashed outside.
Two words filled my world.
Invasion!
"Oh no," Lucy said next to me.
I felt her hand groping for mine, and I squeezed her hand, and the prompt in front of me disappeared, replaced by a loading circle in the center of my field of vision. A new prompt appeared with a map pointing me to the far end of the museum. A giant prompt hovered below the map for a few seconds, then moved to the corner of my field of vision.
(Don’t panic
by AdamsCo
p News and maps provided to you)
"Oh, shit," Daniel said. He was looking at the window on the roof.
I followed his gaze and saw something huge and black pouring out of a rift in the sky. They were long, black, and covered in squirming chunks of flesh, but I could only guess at their size without any sense of scale.
Smaller pieces...things flew past the hulking alien creatures, each one a hundredth the size of the larger object.
Then I saw one of the snowflakes hit a hover car trying to escape.
The sky was illuminated by beams of light and bullets, so thick and bright that it looked like columns of glowing water. The distant roar of heavy machine gun fire entered the museum. Some of the smaller alien pods exploded in mid-air.
"Oh, shit," I agreed. The big ones must be as big as skyscrapers, and they fall to the ground with the grace of bricks as they fall from a height.
"Go, go, run!" someone screamed. An adult.
We rushed in the direction indicated by the map, children screaming as they passed, and a few adults from surrounding schools directing their charge. I tried to spot the kittens, but for a moment, all I could think of was holding Lucy's hand to make sure we didn't get stepped on as we entered one of the smaller hallways.
I lost track of time as I struggled to get Daniel ahead of me and Lucy to her feet. Breathing became labored as we huddled together and I couldn't hear myself think about the crying, screaming, and the fresh smell of urine.
When we saw a huge sign, my heart felt like it was going to explode. There is a stick figure at home with a yellow and black radiation symbol on one side and a green and black jagged bug-like opposing warning symbol on the other.
We were pushed in, all squeezed into a narrow doorway that led to a large room.
I know what a shelter invasion should look like. There have been cartoons on TV since before I was born, and I remember there was one in elementary school.
The room we were in...was not a sanctuary.
There were reinforced walls and cubicles on either side that were supposed to be beds and waiting areas, but nothing more.
"Where's the door?" someone screamed.
I turned and looked towards the entrance. That huge reinforced door... wasn't there.
This is not a refuge, but a dead end.
But it still needs to be reinforced, and this is a better place to wait. I stepped aside—pulling a disheveled Daniel, with his hands to his injured eyes, and Lucy, who had lost her crutches along the way—to stay with me until we were clear of the swarm of children. and caregivers. There were more people in the museum than I expected. Maybe there are always a hundred.
I guess this shelter can accommodate that many people. ?
"Are you okay?" I asked Lucy.
“It just tastes like peaches,” Daniel said.
I retorted, "I'm not talking to you."
He held out his finger to me, but with a nervous laugh on his face. A little levity helps, it makes things feel normal.
"I'm fine," Lucy said. She looked a little shaken, but otherwise looked fine. "Check on the kitten."
Kittens, right?
I pulled my friends aside so they were out of the way. The flow of people pouring out of the shelter's entrance has now slowed to a trickle. Robots were stationed around the room, spouting pleasantries and nonsense to keep people calm, but nothing could be heard over the cries.
I took a deep breath. "Kittens!" I shouted.
Eyes turned to me, I probably looked like a fool.
"Kittens! Tome!"
The twins rushed over, followed by Nemo and Nose, Buggy and Tim. I pushed them toward Lucy, who kept them calm with hugs and smiles.
I counted the heads. "Sparkle and Junior are missing," I said before returning to the center of the room. "Kittens! Sparkle, boy?!"
"Miss LeBlanc, the current decibel level of your voice exceeds the recommended value, please lower your volume——
"There," I said. "The kids are all there."
"I'm disciplining you," the robot continued.
I resisted the urge to curse the robot. "One of the kids was destroying the, uh, museum exhibit," I said.
The robot paused, one of its robotic eyes either focused or unfocused. "This is a priority issue," it said before going offline.
Something grabbed my side and spun me around so fast that I nearly fell over. I came face to face with Sparky, and the little guy looked at me with wide, almost panicked eyes. "Cat," he said. "Kitten, kitten, she fell." He pointed to the exit of the shelter.
I was stunned.
The kitten is my responsibility and maybe Junior is already around. She's the kind of person who hides at times like this to annoy me.
However, will she really do this?
I have to tell someone.
Look around the room and see adults staring at their phones or staring blankly into the distance as they deal with panic. They're not helping. The robot comes out.
It's up to me, Lucy or Daniel.
That's not the best.
"Oh, okay, Sparky. Listen, tell Lucy I'm going to pick up Junior, okay?" I asked.
The little guy nodded and ran to the others. I headed for the exit. I will find Junior and, if necessary, drag her back by her ears.
The floor jumped out from under me.
Scream as everything shakes. Lights flicker. A reinforced panel on the wall had buckled and fallen away, revealing nothing thicker than paper.
"Fuck," I said.
The lights came back on, bathing the room in red. Crackling, an incredibly calm sound filled the air. "An intrusion has been detected in this building. Please seal the shelter doors and await further instructions for rescue."
I think all of us—or at least those who understand—have our eyes set on where the door is.
There are more than a dozen floors below the museum. Aliens could be on any of them.
I heard rumblings in the distance and could imagine the city being destroyed from above by a horde of aliens. I've seen videos arguing against swarms attacking cities, that's someone else's problem. I have to protect the kitten.
I pushed forward and shuffled out of the shelter.
I want to go back. It's unwise to go out into the open when monsters are lurking around every corner.
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to be an idiot. Once the missing children are found, everything will be fine.
The corridor back to the museum itself was much longer than I remembered. I met a few children running by, and several adults were chasing them while looking back at them.
The further you go, the fewer people you meet.
Then I got to the main floor, and my eyes were dragged up to the ceiling above, or what used to be the ceiling. The far end lacked a hole large enough to park a bus, and debris of metal and concrete crushed an entire corner of the museum.
In that hole hung a large mass of fleshy slime, like feces clinging to the edge of the toilet hole.
I covered my mouth with my hands.
Something moved out of the fleshy mess.
My eyes locked on a large object that jumped out of the destroyed pod and crashed onto the monitor. It was the same size as one of the dogs, but hairless and black.
Before I could stare at it for long, it rolled off the dropped display and disappeared from my sight.
Is there only one?
The pod looked large enough to hold dozens of them, but part of it was crushed.
"cat?"
Just a few dozen meters away, Junior was pinned under the collapsed wall of a display cabinet. The girl tried to lift up, but she was pinned down.
I...I want to run away.
There is indeed a man-eating monster in the room.
I took a step back.
"Cat?" Junior called. She must have seen the pod too. And the noise she makes. Can they even hear it?
My legs shook. My breath caught, acid burning in my throat.
I ran away.
My knees hit the ground hard next to Junior. "Pull it off," Junior said.
"Shut up," I said. "Quiet. Do you see how many people there are?"
"Can I answer or do you want me to be quiet?" she said sharply.
Now is not the time. I think my expression told her something too.
"I saw six," she said.
That's six more than I can handle. I pushed the thought aside, grabbed the edge of the display and lifted it. It's just some thick padding with a metal railing around it, but it's huge and hard to pick up with just one arm. Even worse, lifting it will cause some of the stuff on top to fall off.
Junior stirred underneath, frowning as he pushed up. She slipped out and stayed behind.
I blushed and put down the monitor. "Okay, now we need to..."
Junior looked over my shoulder.
I turned around.
The monster was standing ten paces behind me.
