Alex Miles's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Alex moved low through the cut field, the dead Polaris and the checkpoint a mile behind him. The ground was open stubble for as far as he could see. He had counted on the creek bed to hide him, but the creek bed was still half a mile north. Then he heard the hum. He went flat in the dirt and turned his head. A second saucer, smaller than the one over the tent, drifted across the field at the height of a barn roof. Its blue light swept the stubble in slow stripes. If he kept walking, it would have him inside an hour. He crawled to the only cover he could see, a dense tangle of bushes and reed grass at the edge of a drainage ditch. He pushed himself into the green and held still. From there he could watch the saucer without showing his outline. He needed to learn its pattern before he moved again. Speed would put him under the light. Concealment would cost him the three days he already could not afford. While his breathing slowed, he saw the marks. The stubble ahead was pressed flat in a long oval, and across the dirt ran tracks he did not know. Three-toed prints, the size of a child's hand, in clusters of four and five. Something the craft had dropped, or something it had been hunting. The prints led off toward the creek and did not come back. A hand closed on his ankle. Alex rolled and drew his sidearm in one motion. The man in the grass beside him did not flinch. Army fatigues, face streaked with dirt, a rifle laid flat at his side. He lifted one finger to his lips, then pointed at a fallen oak log six feet away. Behind the log, half hidden, sat a small green device with a stub antenna and a glowing screen. A tracker. The screen showed a slow blip crossing a grid. "Locke," the man whispered. "Ranger. Echo team." He tipped the screen so Alex could see. "Sweep runs eight minutes. Turns at the fence line. You've got ninety seconds after it passes to make the creek." Alex kept the pistol low. "You alone?" Locke's jaw set. "Now, yes." He did not explain. Alex did not ask again. The saucer's hum rose, passed overhead, and began to fade north. Locke tapped the screen. "Go." Alex went. He ran bent at the waist across the flattened stubble, past the strange tracks, and dropped into the creek bed as the hum turned at the fence. Locke slid in beside him a breath later, rifle up. Alex had wanted to reach Rivera alone. He was not alone anymore. The creek would take them both toward the next ridge, and toward whatever Locke already knew about the name on his briefing sheet.