Ruin // Danger Days (Book 3)

10.

Soon, a fence came into Alien's view. A tall, barbed-wire fence, with a gate on the highway.
There was a guard tower behind the fence. Alien could only hope that they saw her and let her in before the Dracs got to her. The motorcycles were pretty far away from her, but they could still shoot, and if she were to slow down, they'd be upon her in seconds.

Up in the guard tower, the two people there saw the vehicles coming towards them. They were two teenagers who had volunteered. They never saw anything on the road, so when they saw a giant, colorful van being chased by people in vampire masks on motorcycles, they were really confused.

"What the actual heck?" the boy asked the girl. "What do we do?"

"Well, the people in the masks are from BLI," the girl replied. "They're called Draculoids, remember? We can't let them in. But the van is covered in colors, and BLI don't like that, so the van must be a rebel of some sort! BLI are trying to kill them, probably! We need to give them asylum."

"Are you sure, Em?" the boy was skeptical. "This isn't anything we've dealt with before."

"Oh come on, Jamie," the girl said. "You know I've memorized the entire handbook. This is protocol, we have to let the van in."

The boy sighed and pressed the large red button on the console in front of him to open the gate.

Alien saw the gate beginning to open, and sighed in relief. Even though the gas pedal was pressed to the floor already, she tried her best to speed up even more.

Then, the van shot through the gate. Alien slammed on her brakes once she got in, and swerved the van around. She parked the car, then looked back at the gate.

The Dracs were slowly closing in, but so was the gate. "Come on, come on," she urged the gate, knowing that it wouldn't help but doing it anyway.

And then, the gate closed. The Dracs swerved to a stop at the gate, then after a moment, turned around and zoomed off in the opposite direction.

Alien took a deep breath of relief. "Oh my god," she said to herself, "I'm actually here. I'm in America."

She turned the van off, put her keys in her pocket, and got out. As she closed the door behind her, she saw two people running towards her from the guard tower, a girl and a boy. They must be who opened the gate for me. The girl looked familiar to her, but she couldn't put her finger on where she'd seen her before. But she moved her goggles from her eyes anyway and walked towards them.

"Hey," she greeted the two. "As you can probably tell, I'm a Killjoy, and I'm on the run. Sorry about that."

"It's no problem," the boy told her. "And, what do you mean, you're a Killjoy? The Killjoys were defeated in 2016."

Alien laughed. "The original Killjoys were. We're kind of a second-generation army. But I'll explain that later. What are your names?"

"I'm Emma," the girl said. "And this is James, but he goes by Jamie."

Just hearing her name made Alien realize where she'd seen this girl before. She remembered her elementary school's playground, her and her friends playing Doctor Who for hours on end. And she was there. "Oh my god," she said, "Em? It's me."

Emma looked confused. "Wait, what do you mean? Do I know you? You do look a bit familiar."

Alien hesitated before saying her real name, but then she said, "It's Elizabeth. From elementary. Remember? We were best friends."

Emma did a double take, then her face showed recognition. "El?" she jumped forward and hugged Alien. "Oh man, it is you! I haven't seen you in years!"

Alien hugged her back. "Well, I was a bit busy."
"Uh, guys?" Jamie interrupted. "We should probably go inside. We'll get drawn and quartered if we're caught away from our posts."

Emma grinned at Alien. "Come on, let's go."

🛸

Alien told them both the whole story. It took a long time, but once it was finished, they were both dumbfounded. "...and then I got chased out of Wind City, and you know the rest."

"You were actually the general of a whole army?" Jamie said. "That's awesome! Being a rebel sounds like so much fun."

"It could be at times," Alien replied. "But it's pretty scary too. There's a lot of running for your life and almost dying. Oh, and the food is terrible. It's just dog food, because that's the only thing that won't go bad. I hate that shit, but I get by."

Both of the others were silent. Their faces looked shocked, and Alien was confused as to why. Was it something she'd said? "What? Are you guys okay?"

"You can't say that," Emma told her. "It's illegal."

"What, shit?" Alien asked. "Oh, I forgot. The speech laws. My dad told me—" then she remembered. "My dad. I need to find him."

"They're watching us right now," Jamie said. "The police will be here any minute. You're gonna get fined for saying that."

Alien shrugged. "Well, I guess I'll just have to pay them. And then I can ask them about my dad."

As if on cue, the door opened, and a police officer walked in. He looked very bored. "Ma'am, are you aware that—" he paused as he spotted Alien. He looked her over, and realized that something unusual was going on. "Where did you come from? Who are you?"

"General Atomic Alien," she said out of habit, rather than her real name. "I'm a Killjoy. And I'm on a mission, so I have a few questions for you."

"You're a child," the officer said. "How can you be a general? Of what army?"

"I'm sorry officer, but I am of a higher rank than you," Alien said, relying on her instincts. "So you have no right to speak to me as if I'm a civilian, let alone a child. I'm also eighteen, for the record. And, to answer your question, I'm the leader of the army of Killjoys in the Zones outside of Battery City, which is around... oh, I dunno, about five thousand people? So don't expect me to obey your commands."

🛸

Long story short, Alien was soon sitting in an interrogation room with her gun confiscated and her arms handcuffed behind her.

Typical.