A Different Path

The Plan

The next couple of days were hectic. Mike was desperately pleading with my dad and Captain Weaver to go save his son. He had cried the entire morning after we first saw Rick. It was like someone had shattered him from the inside. His pleading was falling on deaf ears however as Captain Weaver was more concerned with leaving our current camp and finding somewhere else to move to. The Captain had told everyone about the massive number of aliens that had come into the city and had told them we should move by tomorrow. Tomorrow was now today and we were on the move. I was walking slowly with my little brother Matt. He had his backpack on his back and was trying to find some way to entertain himself. It was a long walk because we didn't know where we were going but we trusted Captain Weaver. He was an old but stern man, like a stereotypical war veteran. He was assigned the leader of the 2nd mass by an even older army man named General Porter. Porter ,unlike Weaver, cared about the safety and survival of the entire 2nd mass. If it was up to Weaver they would just go and kill as many of the bastards as they could and go down fighting. That's why Porter assigned my dad as Weavers second. My dad was a history professor before the attack and knows generally what everyone needs in order to survive. He cares about the people of the 2nd mass and he is Weaver second pair of eyes.
The people of the second mass were tired from the days journey but we eventually found a place to camp. A school.
It was easily defended and with a little extra work could be a good place to stay for a while. We converted one of the old science rooms into a medical room and the cafeteria and gym into places to cook and eat. We were finally settling down. As time went on many things happened. We ran into a group of people who ended up killing some of our supply runners, they were run by a man named Pope and he and his group wanted our guns. We fled before they could kill us but one of their members Maggie decided to have a change of heart. She helped us escape and let us know some vital information about the nearby area.
Weaver still didn't trust her ,but I have a different opinion. She is useful and despite her mistakes in life you can tell she's working hard to fix them.
Mike ,when we got to the school, was going crazy. All he would say to my dad or Weaver was that we had to go back.
We couldn't. They knew that. It would be a death trap to send anyone into the city especially after our last excursion led to 3 mechs being led to us. We also didn't have the time or manpower to send a group into dangerous territory on a wild goose chase.
All Mike could do was plead with all his heart and it was starting to take a toll on my dad. I could see his heart break every time he saw Mike wallowing. Dad could relate greatly to Mike's situation. My younger brother Ben is also missing and presumed harnessed. That's what I hope however. I don't want him to be dead and even if he is harnessed we could still save him.
At least that's what the new doctor thinks. His name is Doctor Michel Harris and he was a friend of my dads before the attack. He was sent to our camp by General Porter to assist us and help us with what he believes to be a scientific break through. He believes he knows a way to remove the harnesses.
Mike upon hearing the news rushed to the man and asked what he needed for it to succeed. Harris was apprehensive at first but after hearing about Rick he told him everything.
All he needed was some of the children to do the surgeries. That's when mikes face fell. He wanted his son to get his harness removed but he didn't know where he was or even if he could even get to him.
That's when Maggie popped in.
" you said you were lookin for kids?" She asked looking at the gathering of people. Doctor Harris, Doctor Anne Glass, my dad, Weaver, Dai, Mike, and I.
"Yes we are but your assistance isn't required right now soldier." Weaver said curtly dismissing her. She scowled at the obvious show of distrust.
"When I was with Pope I saw a massive movement of aliens and kids towards the hospital if you want a good chance of getting some i'd go there." She said and moved to leave.
" hold up soldier" Weaver said and huffed. " we are going to need all the help we can get on this mission. Is there anything else you can tell us?" Maggie eyed him wearily.
"Yeah I used to go to that hospital quite a bit for my mom I know the layout and the entrances." Weaver nodded at the news.
"Your new directive is to help in this rescue mission in anyway you can. Get the kids and get out. Save as many as you can without being caught." Maggie nodded at him.
"Get me paper and I'll map it out" Anne walked off to grab the materials. After a bit of drawing Maggie was done. I looked at the makeshift map and it was pretty good. A few gagged lines here or there but it was still good.
" I don't have enough paper for the upper levels but this is the main entrance and the ambulance bay" she said pointing at the map.
"What's the quickest and quietest way in?" Dad asked. His eyes fixed on the map studying it.
"Probably the ambulance bay,but we can't go in as a big group." I turned to her.
"I understand the stealthy part of not being in a group but why can't we all go through?" I asked.
" the place is guarded by mechs.They patrol regularly and if we went in as a group even pairs we'd probably be caught." Dad turned to her.
"What if we sent in one person who will give us a signal when they've got the kids?" Harris shook his head.
"We still don't know how to effectively kill one of these things without making noise. And if you use a gun they will probably wake all of the skitters up."
"Well the only way this mission will succeed is if someone does it alone. We also have to think about the possibility of more skitters awake inside. We need a way to effectively kill them silently before we can even think about getting the kids." Maggie said and everyone nodded.
"Why not test it on our extra specimen?" Weaver asked shifting everyone's focus to the caged skitter in the corner.
It had six legs and was sitting low to the ground. It had green brown skin and pitch black eyes. This particular skitter was caught when Pope attacked us. He had drawn mechs to our position along with this skitter that we ended up capturing. It was making small screeching sounds as it noticed our attention shift to it.
"No we can't!" Anne said quickly "We haven't learned anything from it yet!" Harris rolled his eyes.
"We aren't going to learn anything from it! I doesn't understand us. Your feeble attempts to communicate with it have all failed!" Anne was glaring at Harris.
"We can't kill it yet. We haven't been able to communicate with it because we are going about it in the wrong way. It also doesn't help that you've been torturing it!" The 2 began a heated argument over what was best for the obviously agitated alien.
"That's enough!" Weaver yelled silencing the 2 doctors. He had his fingers on the bridge of his nose obviously fighting a headache.
"Anne you have 2 days to learn whatever it is that you think you can learn from it before I kill it. In the mean time the rest of you are to find a way to get this done with no loss of 2nd mass life. If you don't find a way to sneak in silently and kill them silently you are not going on this mission." Mike was about to argue but Weaver held up a hand.
"I understand you want to save your son but some kids we may or may not be able to save is not worth the lives of our best scouters and soldiers."the lot of us nodded our heads although some were begrudgingly.
"Y'all have 3 days. Believe me when I say I want you to save them I do, but I can't loose all of you on false hope." With that Weaver walked out of the room leaving the rest of us to plan to invade the hospital.