Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments Read Free Page B

Doc returns to the platform, I turn to Lauren to see if I can help her block out the voices, but she doesn’t seem bothered by them.
    Doc introduces us to the crowd — the boy and girl are named Zack and Zelda — and says we make fifty-two newcomers. He says it’s time we stopped thinking of ourselves as Wind Clan or Thunder Clan of the House of Jupiter or the House of Apollo and started thinking of ourselves as New America.
    “It’s a new world,” he says, “and we are the survivors. It’s time we became something new and inclusive. We’ll be like America once was to the rest of the world. We will welcome all. New America. What say others?”
    Others say a lot — though most of them don’t use their mouths. Some think New Bloods (those of us who changed because of contact with the aliens) and people from other houses can’t be trusted, shouldn’t be trusted. Some agree with Doc, though, and think all survivors should unite.
    Someone mindspeaks,
If the Spirit of the Warrior comes to one from outside the houses and clans, all has changed.
We
must change.
    If,
someone else mindspeaks doubtfully.
If.
    The man beside Doc, the one who makes two of him, raises his massive arms. He has brown, leathery skin and a wide, blunt nose. The voices go silent.
    “I’m Running Bird, for those of you who don’t know me,” he says, looking right at me.
    My first thought is
Don’t you mean Flying Bird?
But then I remember there is a bird that runs: the roadrunner. Then I hear something strange even in this strange new world. I hear
“Beep beep!”
in my mind — the sound of the roadrunner from the cartoon.
    “Also called Sam White. I’m a real, live Navajo, Hispanic, white, African-American American, in case you’re wondering. All of you better put aside all your prejudices against New Bloods and other houses and Native American, Hispanic, white, African-American Americans because the aliens are coming for us. I saw in a dream that the House of Vulcan is no more. I saw it, and it is true. If we are to survive, we have to join together.”
    Voices in the crowd are saying that the House of Vulcan is strong and cannot be destroyed, but we all know it can. We have been conquered. The conquered know things that the unconquered don’t. One of the things the conquered know is that anything can be destroyed.
    “Alien hunters track us,” Running Bird says. “Doc is right. We need every survivor we can get. We are all New America or we are lost.”
    “We are the Clan of the Wind of the House of Jupiter,” someone says, and I see that someone is the blond guy again. “We are two thousand years old, and we will survive. Running Bird’s vision just makes it clearer how. We must hide. I will lead us to the caves in Mexico my grandfather showed me. I will lead the way.”
    Dylan.
I hear his name in the minds of others. And something else:
Doc’s son.
I see the physical resemblance, though Dylan is lighter in color than Doc and muscular and has long, straight blond hair. But I had a strong feeling of trust when I met Doc, and I feel just as strongly about Dylan — only the feeling is the opposite.
    Running Bird says, “The aliens will track us wherever we go. We cannot hide.”
    “The caves will protect us,” says Dylan. “No one knows about them but me. We can survive in the caves.”
    Running Bird shakes his head. “And then what?”
    “We will build a city below the earth, and we will grow stronger. We will live. And someday we’ll return to the surface. Someday it will be safe. But until that day, we will live under the ground. And in the future they’ll tell stories about us and how we saved mankind.”
    Stories about him. He thinks they’ll tell stories about
him.
I feel his yearning for these stories.
    There are a lot of voices then. Most of them agree with Dylan.
Run. Hide. Live.
I get it. I understand.
Run, hide, live
sounds better than
stay, fight, die.
If those are the choices, then I’m with the majority.