Independence Day: Crucible (The Official Prequel) (19 page)

West, over mountains and plains, forests and finally an ocean, to America, where she was
not
going tomorrow. Of course, from here it was probably quicker to go east—or no, north, over the pole. It didn’t matter. She would still be here, eating noodles with mutton, not hamburgers.

She watched a dragonfly hunt in the reeds. Across the shallow river, younger children laughed as they played tag among swings and jungle gyms. East, in the desert, the gigantic ships loomed, nearly ready to go to the moon. She wished she could be on one of them, or at least go with Uncle Jiang to America, but she wasn’t yet fifteen. Uncle Jiang assured her that her time would come, soon enough, but it seemed to be taking forever, each month crawling along like a snail.

She pulled her feet out and let them dry, which happened quickly in the arid air. Then she slipped her shoes back on and went home.

There she found Uncle Jiang packing, which just made her all the more jealous. She had an apple and a glass of water, and then went to her room to do homework. She paused to look at the framed, autographed picture of Steve Hiller, and collapsed on her bed.

She hadn’t yet opened her books when she heard a slight rapping at the door.

“Yes, sir?” she said.

Uncle Jiang stayed in the doorway, looking a little uncomfortable.

“How was school today?” he asked.

“Good,” she said. “Nothing to complain about.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s fine.”

“Is there anything else?” she said.

He paused another moment. “I know how much you wish you could come with me,” he said. “To see the test flight. I’m sorry that it isn’t possible. This is state business, and it wouldn’t look right to bring nonessential personnel along.”

“I understand,” she said.

“However,” he said, “I’ve arranged for you to view the event remotely.”

“I was planning on watching it in the common room in the compound,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “You could do that, or you could watch it here, in the apartment.”

“How can I—” Then she hopped up and flew past him to the next room. There, hanging on the wall, was a flat-screen TV.

“You got a TV,” she said, unbelieving. “You, Lao Jiang, got a TV.” Her uncle
despised
television. He believed it was the greatest existing underminer of civilization, and that it turned human brains into boiled jellyfish.

“If I see the slightest slip in your grades, it goes out, do you understand?” he said.

“I understand,” she said. “Oh, thank you, Uncle Jiang.”

“Well,” he said. “You’ve done very well since you’ve been here. You’ve followed my rules without fail—at least that I know of.”

He glanced away, out of the window.

“Ms. Li will keep an eye on you while I’m gone,” he said. “If you wish to have a friend or two over to watch with you, that should be fine. It’s a morning launch there, so it won’t be too late here, but bear in mind you have school the next day.”

“I will, sir,” she said.

* * *

It had been a long time since Patricia had been on Air Force One, and her memories of the aircraft were indelibly marked by the confusion and terror of their flight from Washington, of the flames and smoke of the city’s destruction by an alien destroyer. At six, she hadn’t been clear on what was going on, only that grown-ups were frightened, and crying, and yelling at each other. But her father had been there, and that had helped.

He was here now, too, riding at the invitation of Vice-President Lanford.

She watched the barren but beautiful desert terrain as they began their descent, and forced herself to continue watching as the ruins of the wrecked spaceship came into view, now as much a part of the landscape as the volcanic cores and ragged uplifts that characterized the region.

“I get why they want to have the Expo here,” she told her dad, “but it still gives me the creeps.”

“Our first victory,” he said. “It’s hard to believe it’s been almost eleven years.” His eyes shifted to her. “It’s hard to believe you’re shipping out to the Academy in a few months.”

“I’m having a little trouble believing it myself,” she said.

“Have you settled on a major?” he asked.

“I’m still considering,” she said. “I’m leaning toward poly-sci.”

“Your mother would be proud of you,” he said. “I know I am.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said.

The fact was that she barely remembered her mother. Of course there were plenty of pictures and video to remind her, and biographies to read. And Dad, always Dad with his stories. Patricia wanted to remember, to fill the sadness that did linger, the remainder of the little girl trying to comprehend so much at once. So she could talk to her father about her, because she knew he would like that.

This time, however, she let it fall into silence and watched the desert arrive.

* * *

“That’s truly a thing of beauty,” Secretary of Defense Tanner said, touching the smooth metal of the prototype. Colonel Steven Hiller stood by in the hangar as Tanner and Vice-President Lanford examined the craft.

“She is attractive, Mr. Secretary,” Hiller acknowledged. He meant it—it gave him shivers just looking at her.

Lanford turned to him. The vice-president was a striking woman in her late forties. She carried herself with an effortless air of competence. She had hazel eyes and dark brown hair, and was wearing a black suit.

“I’m given to understand, Colonel Hiller,” she said, “that you have some problem with the test flight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “With all due respect, the little problem is that there’s not going to be a test flight.”

“I beg your pardon?” Tanner said.

“I’m not putting any of my pilots in that thing until David Levinson gives it the once-over, and has the test performance record to evaluate.”

“Colonel Hiller,” Tanner said, “you’re skating toward insubordination.”

“Sir, if one of my pilots is in danger, I’ll skate all the way up that hill and back down it again.”

“First of all,” Tanner said, “they aren’t ‘your’ pilots, Colonel Hiller. Secondly, Director Strain assures me this ship is ready to go.”

“Why was Levinson removed from the project?” Hiller asked.

“Colonel, I know the two of you are friends—”

“Friends? We flew an alien spacecraft into their mother ship and blew it up. If it weren’t for David, none of us would be having this conversation. The fact that we’re friends is so, so not the point.”

Tanner took a step forward, frowning dangerously.

“Colonel, you were on record yourself saying that you thought he was dragging the project out unnecessarily, that his approach was too timid.”

“I never said ‘timid,’” Hiller said. “There’s nothing timid about him. Careful, yes. A little obsessive, sure. Especially when it comes to other people’s lives.”

“Colonel—” Tanner began, but the vice-president interrupted him.

“I see no reason to deny the colonel’s request,” she said. “He would feel easier about the test flight if Levinson approved the craft, so why not give Levinson access?”

Tanner’s mouth pressed into an upward arc.

“The test is in two days,’ he said.

“Well, then,” Lanford said, “he’ll have a day and a half with it.”

The town of 51 was bustling as people arrived from all over the country, there for the ESD Spring Expo. The event had begun in 2004, in the months following the Army’s adoption of alien weaponry, partly as an attempt to quell public reservations about use of alien tech. It had been successful, and in the following years had developed into both a showcase of the latest advancements and a conference at which scientists, engineers, and mathematicians came to put their heads together.

Attendance by the general public had been down the last few years, but following the announcement that the Expo would feature the test flight of the first fully operational hybrid fighter, it quickly became a sold-out event. Many who couldn’t get tickets were camping out in the surrounding desert, hoping to get a glimpse of the ship taking flight.

Due to the crowds, it took Dylan a little longer to reach the hotel where most of the dignitaries were staying. The lobby was awhirl with color and alive with the sounds of languages from around the world. It took him a few minutes to pick out Patricia, dressed casually in jeans and a halter top. She had been cornered by a reporter and seemed to be giving an interview. She saw him at about the same time, and her expression said “Help me.”

As he closed the distance, one of the camera crew noticed him. He said something into his face microphone, and the camera turned.

“And here’s Dylan Hiller,” the reporter said. She was a young woman with short red hair. “You two have been friends since childhood,” she said. “How does it feel to be reunited for this momentous occasion?”

“Well, we keep in touch,” Dylan said, “but we’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Has your father made a decision about who is going to pilot the alien-hybrid prototype?” the reporter asked.

“I don’t know,” Dylan said, “but if you want to ask him, he’s right over there.”

She turned to look, as did the cameraman. Dylan grabbed Patricia’s hand and began to move away quickly.

They were both laughing as they burst out onto the street.

“Hey, you,” Patricia said. They exchanged a hug that felt way more awkward than it should have.

“Place has changed a little since we were kids, huh?” he said.

“To say the least,” she said. “I don’t recognize anything.”

“Well, anything you would recognize is probably off-limits to us these days,” he said, “but I can give you a tour of the new stuff.”

“That sounds fun,” she said. “I’ve got until five, and then Dad is giving some sort of press conference, and he wants me there.”

“Sure,” he responded. “Come on.”

They congratulated each other on getting into the Academy, and talked a little about what they thought it would be like. Now and then he pointed out a new landmark, but quickly realized that although a lot of building had taken place, most of the most interesting stuff was underground.

“So, I guess your dad is proud you’re going to be a pilot?” she said.

“Well, he always said he’d be proud of me whatever I chose to do.”

She looked at him a bit skeptically.

“Do you believe that?” she asked.

He thought about it for a moment.

“I believe he thinks he means it,” he said, “but every time I say I want to be a pilot, like him, he gets this certain look, and I know it wouldn’t be quite the same look if I wanted to be a librarian or a haberdasher or something.”

“Haberdasher?” she said. “You’re going to hurt yourself, using words like that.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Risks of a decent education. Anyway, I think the world sort of expects me to be a pilot.”

“Didn’t we have this conversation two years ago?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Right before we both went off.”

It was weird. On one level he felt like he knew Patricia really well, but there was something different—a distance, an awkwardness. She didn’t even look the same. She looked grown up. Which she was, and he probably looked different too.

He spent the next half hour working up his nerve.

“So,” he finally said. “While you’re here—would you maybe like to go out?”

It sounded dreadful even as he said it. He didn’t have trouble asking girls out. It was kind of his thing—it was keeping one around that he wasn’t so good at. And yet, the words just seemed to clunk out of him like bricks.

Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Do you mean like on a date?” she said, a little uncertainly.

“Well—maybe,” he said. “What do you think?” But he could already tell from her apologetic expression.

“I think I have a boyfriend back in Virginia,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, suddenly wishing there was a deep hole he could step directly into. “Yeah, of course you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

How could
that
be the wrong thing to say? He thought he knew something about girls. Patricia was raising serious doubts.

“Well—look at you,” he said. “You’re smart, fun—the complete package.”

“Okay,” she said. “Now you’re making me blush. Can we change the subject?”

“Absolutely,” Dylan said, eager to do so. “Changing subject in five, four, three, two, one… What do you think about green chili pizza?”

“I’m sure I’m at a total loss on that subject,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “let me educate you. There’s a place right up here. My buddy Jake works there. He’s going to the Academy too, so you should meet him anyway.”

* * *

Jake knew he had seen the girl before, the moment she walked into Pizza 51, but he couldn’t for the life of him place where. She had honey-blond hair, dark eyes, and a very nice smile that went straight through him and left his toes tingling.

One thing he was certain of—she wasn’t one of the local girls. There weren’t that many of them, and he would have noticed her for sure.

Dylan was on his phone when they came in, so Jake just did his best to look friendly.

“You must be Jake,” the young woman said, sticking out her hand.

“That’s me,” he said, shaking it. “And you—I know you. From—ah—somewhere.”

“Really,” she said. “Have we met?” From the way she said it, he knew they hadn’t, and she was having some fun with him.

“No,” he said. “No—TV maybe? Magazines? Are you a model?”

“Dylan didn’t tell me you were so smooth,” she said.

“I’m not smooth,” Jake said. “Completely unsmooth. Just confused.”

“She’s Patricia Whitmore,” Charlie piped up from the corner table, where he was doing his homework.

Of course she is
, Jake thought, giving himself a mental smack in the head. Dylan talked about her all the time, and naturally she would be coming to the celebration. There was no way Dylan could resist bringing her around to show her off.

“Thanks, Charlie,” he said. “That didn’t make me look stupid at all.”

“My pleasure,” Charlie replied. He didn’t look up.

“So,” Jake said. “You’re in town.”

“You’re very in the moment, aren’t you?” Patricia said. “Not thinking ahead, not thinking back just… right there. I like it.” Was she flirting with him or making fun of him? He couldn’t tell, but whichever it was, he didn’t want her to stop.