Underlings (Not being updated at this time)

Underlings - 24. Shang-a-lang-a-dingdong

Ella Kinnear had been awake for twenty seven hours. She'd consumed too much crap coffee and she was irritable.

She'd been scanning and hacking her way in and out of systems since her early teens, but in those days she did it for fun. Now she did it to find out if the invasion threat was real; the urgency was paramount and the pay was less than she'd have got working a day shift on her uncle's pick n' pack pet food line in Kent.

Sometimes she missed the luxury of not knowing things - living life in ignorance of the dangers and malice that lurked in every corner.

Landry appeared via video link, on a boat in the middle of an ocean.

"What do you have?"

Landry looked like she also hadn't slept. She wasn't as composed as usual and her hair was a mess.

"The threat is real. Whilst everyone was looking in the skies for space ships to land, I focused on open spaces. I figured there is no need for invaders to arrive from the air if they're already here in a different time. I've sent you a file which shows activity in fifty two remote locations in ASPAC I've identified so far with what appears to be new military presence assembled."

Landry viewed the file on her phone as Ella spoke...

"Satellites showed nothing in these places days ago. Since Kree announced his presence, our visitors have begun to arrive and I imagine await their orders. Here is the exact moment a force materialized outside KL..."

Landry opened the next attachment. A recording showed a bird's eye view of a valley shielded between tree covered mountains. A satellite had happened to capture the moment that a ground force appeared out of thin air. The was no poof of smoke or lightening field. It was simply cut and paste.

"I'm not seeing significant force. The numbers are small. Are they shielding something? How many sites are you calculating if this is representative?"

Landry was hopeful. The numbers would not be able to fulfill Kree's threat. Had she over-estimated him?

"Each force has approximately two thousand armed men. At a guess, globally we could be talking just two hundred thousand soldiers."

"What am I missing here?"

"It could be an initial landing force, but I don't think the numbers are the problem. It's the technology, not just the helmets we looked at, it's the weaponry... It's started. These forces haven't even left camp but they have sent drones to the nearest airports and cities with payloads. They're casual, but they mean business. Shanghai has just been incinerated. It's gone. You were right about moving the hive. As far as I can tell, so has Tokyo, London, New York... there are drones filling the skies as we speak. They are going to destroy everything, wipe it clean just as Kree said."

As Ella spoke she heard the fear in her voice. She cleared her throat.

"Is the team with you at site beta?"

"Just Jason and Wang. Georgia and Nathaniel are on route. The others are yet to call in."

"OK. Let me know as and when they arrive. Your orders are to share intel on all channels with all agencies. Someone needs to get missiles and fighters on those sites asap. when you're done, I want you to go dark. We have just become the resistance."

Ella looked shocked and the feed went dead.

The admission of it hit Landry hard. London, her home was gone. A handful of people scattered across the globe were to be a wafer thin resistance against an army of their own descendents. She always did hate children. At least she knew this mess wasn't hers. She never understood why people would want to bring children into such a cruel, evil world.

Jason, her casual muse, was alive in China. She wondered if Karl had made it back in England.

Fuck.