Elliott Tercorien

Somah's voice intruded about then, speaking to Sally; Ellen didn't hear it. The urge to pound herself in the head with her own fists and hope that she woke up in Vault 101 was very strong. Being quick and bright and able to adapt was all well and good, but this was- this was ridiculous! Insane! Didn't Mr. Brotch say that Carl Bell trained for an entire year just to qualify for his fifteen minutes as the first man in space? This was just-

A hand tapped her on the shoulder. Ellen spun around to face a blond man with a dazed, suspicious expression. Whatever time he'd spent in the aliens' freezing-pods, he didn't look much older than thirty. "Excuse me," he said. "What's... what's going on? Who are all these people?"

"I-" Ellen's tongue stalled. He was wearing combat armor, a blue-white mixture of cerametal and plastic that she knew almost well enough to place on sight, with a tiny white cross on a red background next to the neck. "Your- uniform? That's military armor, right? I've seen it before-"

"My what?" The man's pale eyes went wide with sudden horror. "Who the hell are y- oh my God, wait a minute! Aliens! I was taken by aliens! You, you must be the aliens trying to get into my mind! Well, that's not gonna work! Private Elliott Tercorien, US Army Medic, serial number 3477809." He crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin defiantly. "That's all I'm telling you."

Reflexively, Ellen lifted both hands. "Hey," she said, as reassuringly as she could muster, "I'm not an alien. I was kidnapped too."

Tercorien shook his head. Ellen realized with a startle that he was probably at least as terrified as she was. "I dunno, I dunno!" he said rapidly. "Maybe you assumed human form, I've heard they can do that! ... or, or maybe you are a human, but they took over your mind!" He gave her a pleading, prove-me-wrong-why-don't-you kind of look. "We have no idea how limitless their powers are!"

"They're not limitless enough to keep me from knocking one of them out with my bare hands," Ellen said. Even though she'd cleaned the blood off a while ago, she wiped at her nose again. "I just want to go home."

"You do? That's all?" Tercorien eyed her face; Ellen nodded. Slowly he said, "Then you're telling me the truth. Those... aliens took you too."

"They took all of us," Ellen said soberly. "Sally, Somah, that cowboy gentleman, the samurai, Colonel Hartigan, God rest his soul- all of us."

Tercorien closed his eyes and blew a long, long sigh between his teeth. "Look, I just want to get out of here and get back with my guys... wait a minute." He opened his eyes and looked at Ellen. "My men. My unit. Have you seen them?"

"I'm sorry," Ellen said. "There was a dead woman in one of the holding cells, and a man the aliens took away for experimentation, but he didn't look like he'd ever been military."

"Oh my God." Tercorien ran both hands over his short blond hair. "I'm responsible for them, and now they're lost, or dead. Please-" He turned to Ellen, his expression frantic. "If you mean what you say, that we're all in this together, then you've got to help me find out what happened to them!"

Ellen glanced over at where Colonel Hartigan's body lay. Much as she wanted to escape, well... something in her quailed an absolute terror at the thought of taking that poor man's spacesuit and going Out. If Tercorien's squad was still alive, who knew? Maybe one of them could do it instead. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll be glad to help."

Tercorien smiled. It was a strained, tired expression, but it was genuine. "Thank you. Thanks so much. Sorry about all this... I just can't believe this is happening."

"That makes two of us," Ellen said. "Hang on just a minute?"

"Huh? Uh, sure."

Ellen turned and waved Somah and Sally over. "Slight change of plans," she said. "Dr. Tercorien here's with the Army. He said his whole squad got kidnapped by these guys, too. I promised to help him find them before we leave."

"You sure that's a good idea?" said Somah skeptically. "It's a big ship. they could be anywhere."

"Oh, they're probably in the freezing labs if they're anywhere," said Sally. "I've been through there a couple of times. It's where they keep all the pods they're not using. There's lots of people frozen in there. If you find the right machine you can see their faces and clothes and everything."

"Tell me what the right machine looks like," said Ellen, "and Dr. Tercorien and I will get going."

---

"This place is huge," Tercorien said in wonder as they made their way down the corridor towards Cryogenic Storage. "How did they ever build something this big?"

"Maybe they did it in orbit," Ellen said. "If you don't have to deal with gravity pulling everything down, you can get really big, you know?"

"Yeah, that makes sense, I guess..."

"Say, Doctor-" Ellen glanced at Tercorien's armor again. "Can I ask where you're from? I know I've seen that armor before."

"Me?" Tercorien blinked, startled. "Well, I was a medic stationed with the 108th infantry battalion at Anchorage, Alaska-"

"The sim!" Ellen said, snapping her fingers.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry- I had to go through a computer simulation of the Anchorage campaign a while ago. That's where I know your armor from. In the sim, Sergeant Montgomery and I wore almost exactly the same stuff. All the American soldiers did, only none of them had the medic markings."

"Figures," said Tercorien dryly. "I was with a squad of five other medics- our job was to patch people up after the Commies gunned them down. It was pretty bloody- nothing at all like what I expected when I gave up my hospital job to enlist in the army."

"I can imagine," said Ellen, thinking back to the power-armored soldier who'd run headlong into the Chinese pulse field. "How'd you get captured?"

Tercorien shrugged. "Well, it was getting dark. We'd spent the day out in the trenches keeping as many of the guys alive as we could. The Chinese had been pounding on us with these big artillery guns they had up on the mountains."

"Three of them?" Ellen said. "Bigger than houses, with barrels you could fit a person into?"

"Yeah, it was really a mess." Tercorien grimaced. "Anyway, we pitched our tents and stowed our gear, trying to catch some shut-eye. I woke up suddenly to Private Dawkins screaming... he was bathed in some kind of blue light coming from the sky. All of us froze as he just- well- vanished. We didn't know what happened. Did the Chinese come up with some new weapon? Moments later, all of us were in the blue light too... and, well, you know the rest."

Ellen shook her head. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "That must've been terrifying."

Tercorien offered a very small smile. "They stuck a microphone in my face at one point. Trying to get a statement or something, I guess. I mostly alternated between begging to be let go and swearing like a sailor. Not my finest moment."

"Hey, I almost blacked myself out hyperventilating," Ellen answered with a shrug. "I don't think anybody's at their best when they've been kidnapped by aliens and thrown in a place like this."

"No, probably not," Tercorien agreed. "So what's your..."

From the sound of things he'd been about to say so what's your story, but the door into Cryo had opened, and the chill on the other side was as deep as in the chamber where he and the others had been frozen. The room was blue-litten, low-ceilinged, with incomprehensible equipment scattered about- and windows running along one side. Tercorien leaned over to peer through one and sucked in a breath. "What the hell are those aliens doing in there?"

Ellen leaned over to peer in as well, and gulped. The pain in her throat was quite forgotten as she said, "Looks like-"

"Autopsies," they concluded at the same time. They looked at each other a moment; eventually Ellen said, "So, do we...?"

"I... don't think we can do anything for those people," Tercorien said. "Maybe we should-"

"I think that one saw us," Ellen said, pointing to the alien who'd looked up from its work and whipped out a zap gun Ellen was far too familiar with.

The battle didn't last long. Ellen had raided the aliens in the Steamworks for every bit of ammunition she could find, and there'd been a door into some kind of cargo hold just off the room with all the conduits; Tercorien had armed himself there. When the last of the aliens fell Ellen moved over to the autopsy tables. "I'd give you a proper burial if I could," she murmured to the two corpses, "but we don't have a choice. Rest in peace, and may God have mercy on your souls and welcome you home."

Then she took careful aim with the alien zap gun, and pulled the trigger, and kept shooting until each of the bodies blazed with light and fell to ashes.

"That was kind of you," Tercorien said as they continued on their way. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

Ellen shrugged. "Before I left my Vault, I was trained as a chaplain for several years," she said. "I had to do at least something."

"Chaplain? Really?" Tercorien blinked. "Wow. I never would've guessed. Of course, that's probably partly the uniform..."

"Oh? Do you recognize it?" Ellen glanced down at the dead woman's clothing. "I've never seen anything like it before."

"Well, it sure looks like the kind of thing that High Command wore back in Washington," Tercorien said. "Not that I was ever in their presence much, but you saw them now and then, you know? The hat's a little weird, though. I've been trying to figure out what 'E' stands for, and it's not really working."

Ellen took off the black cap and considered the emblem a moment, then shrugged and put it back on. It was too cold in here not to wear whatever could help keep her warm. "I don't know. Eagle, maybe, or Elite. All I know is that I got it off a woman who'd died in the holding cells."

"Oh."

The corridor took another turn ahead of them, opening onto a room with two of the red-garbed worker aliens. They fled at the sight of Ellen and the soldier. That was fine with Ellen. Revenge might've been nice, but aliens who cringed and ran like frightened radroaches probably weren't the aliens she wanted revenge on in the first place. She just shook her head and glanced around the room, but the only thing she recognized was-

"Oh, hey, this glyph here looks like the one they had in front of the door where you guys were frozen," Ellen said, pointing to a glowing blue design that hovered in midair. "I wonder if anybody's frozen in here?"

"Don't know," said Tercorien. "Isn't that control panel over there the same sort of thing that was in the freezer room, though?"

"Sure looks like it," Ellen said. Sure enough, when she moved over to it, there was a Y-shaped glowing blue button. Curious, she pressed it, and a pair of pods popped up from indentations in the floor. She moved forward to peer into them, but grimaced when she got the frost off the glass and actually saw inside. "Ugh. Ghouls."

"What?" said Tercorien, coming forward for a look himself. "What are- gaaah!"

"That's what happens to you if you're exposed to massive amounts of radiation but somehow manage to not die," Ellen said soberly. "You wind up with the world's worst case of cutaneous radiation syndrome, forever. There's a ghoul in the town where I live who told me that there's a couple of ghouls alive who still remember the Great War."

Tercorien shook his head slowly, expression uncomfortable. "Do you think we should let them out?" he said dubiously. "It doesn't look like they've got a lot to look forward to..."

There was something odd in his voice; Ellen glanced at him, frowning. "Something wrong?"

"Sorry. I just- I talked to Somah a little before we left," Tercorien said. "About what's waiting down there. You know, if we do escape." He nodded to the ghoul. "Stuff like this, and mutant animals, and... well, everything I've ever known or loved is pretty much gone by now, isn't it?"

Ellen didn't know what to say to that without sounding cruel. She lay a hand on Tercorien's armored forearm instead.

He smiled gratefully. "Sorry," he said. "I just... I don't know what I've got to look forward to, that's all. I'll figure it out later. We should go try to find the rest of my squad now, though. Whatever's waiting, I don't want to leave them in alien hands."

Cryo Labs

There was another round door up ahead. Ellen was starting to get sick of round doors and round corridors and the endless cold. Her uniform, whatever it might have done for the original owner while she was still alive, simply was not able to keep out the cold. The sooner they found Tercorien's squadmates- assuming they did find them- the better, as far as she was concerned. "So," she said, trying to distract herself from the pervasive chill, "what do you think the aliens want with us?"

"Dunno," said Tercorien with a shrug. "Maybe they seeded Earth with life millions of years ago and they've been coming back to check up on it, you know? And they don't like what they've seen, but they're taking samples anyway? Or... or maybe they're trying to get a toehold on Earth, so they're stealing people to learn what we look like and how we act, and once they've figured out how to imitate us best they'll send in their infiltrators to take the place over?"

Ellen wrinkled her nose- there wasn't much point to taking over Earth now, if things were as bad as the Capital Wasteland everywhere- but didn't say anything. It wasn't as if she had any theories.

"Or maybe they're meat eaters," said Tercorien slowly, stepping through the door, "and they're... harvesting us, one at a.... hey, is that some kind of operating room in there?"

Ellen craned her neck sharply, trying to see what Tercorien was looking at, but the medic had stopped in his tracks in front of her. "Wait a minute," he said as he squinted into the room from where he stood. "What the... no. NO!"

She glanced at him; for all that he wore the winterized armor of the Alaskan troops, he was starting to shake. "That's my squad in there!" Tercorien shouted. "What the hell are those aliens doing to them? You green bastards! Get your hands off them!"

He dashed forward, ramming his fists against the window; Ellen could see, now, that there were a number of aliens gathered around two operating tables, and that in the rear part of the room there were two cryogenic pods. As she turned to find the operating room door, Tercorien muttered, "There has to be a way to release their containment seal. Maybe there's a, a button or something on this console-"

"They usually like Y-shapes," Ellen murmured. Tercorien nodded and brought his fist down on the only Y-shaped button anywhere among all the instruments. There were a couple of clanking noises, and then with a soft hiss, the operating room door slid open.

Tercorien's eyes lit up with a fierce, almost painful joy. "How do you like that, you fucks? How does it feel to be on the other end for a change?" He lunged for the door, alien gun drawn, and shouted, "EXPERIMENT ON THIS, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!"

( "I don't remember half of what they did to me, and that's probably a good thing - they must really like you, at least they let me keep my clothes-" )

Throat burning almost as much as memory, Ellen charged into the operating room after him.

When it was over, the only thing left of the aliens were ashes.

It occurred to Ellen as she silently reloaded her gun that there were four cryo pods in the room, two occupied, two empty. She moved over to one of the empty pods and touched the glowing green spot on its control panel, but all it produced was silence interspersed with alien babble. The other one, though...

"Private Lawrence Mears, U.S. Army Medic, Serial Number 3476511."

Alien voices babbled.

"Private. Lawrence. Mears. U.S. Army Medic. Serial Number 3476511."

Again, alien voices- angrier this time.

"AGH! Fuck! You... can do what...ever you want to me... I'm not saying jack sh...Stick it where the... sun don't shine..."

Angrier aliens than before, now, and the sound of something heavy striking human flesh.

"AGGGH! Oh my g... P-priv.. ate Law-lawrence M..mea..rs. U.S. Ar...army M-m-m...edic..."

She stepped away from the pod, her hand over her mouth. There were tears in her eyes; Tercorien had them as well. "Oh my God, no," he murmured. "I can't believe they did this to you. Why wasn't I here sooner? I could've stopped them..."

"We came as quickly as we were able," Ellen said, equally quietly. Truth be told, she was half kicking herself as well. "That's what we're here for."

"I... yeah." Tercorien nodded. "Yeah." His expression hardened again. "You're right. That's it. I'm sick of running. Let's finish these aliens off and get the hell home!"

"All right," said Ellen. "Where are the controls for these pods, anyway?"

"Over there," said Tercorien, indicating a likely Y-shaped control, "but don't touch them just yet, okay? I... I think I can work some of this stuff, now that I look at it. If we're careful, I may be able to bring them out of stasis safely, so they don't end up like Colonel Hartigan."

Ellen winced, but nodded. "What do you need me to do?" she said. "I learned to read from my father's medical texts."

"Let me see... damn." Tercorien glanced up at a row of slender glass ampoules mounted in chrome. "The aliens've injected them with all sorts of compounds I don't recognize. I don't know how they'll react when they wake. If these are really their vital signs...."

He indicated a row of tiny screens, each more complicated than the last. There was one that almost resembled what Ellen remembered the normal rhythm of a human heart was supposed to look like- almost.

"... then they're not very good," Tercorien finished. "I don't know if they'll last more than a few minutes, at best, but... you saw what the aliens did to the others." He looked to Ellen uncertainly. "We can't just leave them- can we?"

A few minutes of life, confused, thousands of miles from anything that had ever been home, capped off by certain death... or- She glanced over at the piles of ash on the operating tables. One hand crept up to the side of her throat. "No," she said, "you're right. Revive them. Even if they die afterwards, at least they die as people, not as experiments."

"O- okay."

Tercorien's work was complicated, but quick; apparently once he made up his mind to do something, he stuck with it. A few minutes later he looked up at the tubes, crossed his fingers, and hit the Y-shaped release button. The pods slid open in a hiss of condensate steam. Ellen held her breath-

"Agh... feels like someone rearranged my insides," came a mumbled voice from the thick of the steam.

"What the... where..."

Tercorien beamed. "It worked!" he said. "Ellen, it worked!" He grabbed Ellen up in a fierce, momentary hug of glee, but dropped her an instant later. "Uh. I mean. Excuse me-"

He darted away, over to where the steam was dissipating. Ellen blinked a few times; what had just happened?

"All right, squad," she heard him say, "listen up. I know you have no idea what's going on. We've been captured by aliens- the things that grabbed us from Anchorage. And I know you're in the same boat I was, weapons-wise-"

There was an odd, round-ended container rimmed with pulsating blue lights close at hand. On a hunch Ellen found the one steadily glowing spot on its surface and pressed it. The lid slid back to reveal two slender rifles of alien design and a container of the glowing thumb-sized sticks that seemed to power all the weapons. "Not for long," she called out. "Come and have a look."

Tercorien glanced into the box and beamed. "Fantastic. Here, men. Take these weapons and follow me. Let's show them what some motivated U.S. soldiers can do!"

Alien Captive Recording Bank

"Yes, yes, I understand! I've seen the others. I'll do what you want. This is Doctor Morrison Rand, Professor of Anthropological Archaeology at Banfield College, Humboldt, Oregon. Shortly after 10:00 p.m., on August 16, 2041, as I was leaving the college campus, headed to my car, I saw a blinding light. It just... appeared. In the sky, directly over me. I was blinded. I also found my body completely immobilized. I couldn't move, not at all. What happened next is... hazy. I don't remember much. But what became clear later - what is certainly clear now - is that I was abducted. I am now the captive of an alien race, one of many people held here, against our will. And, like those others, I am recording who I am.

"Why? Because the aliens want us to, for some reason. They have us do it right before they put us into some kind of... suspended animation. These recordings... It's almost as if we're creating our own library catalog entries, before we get put into a giant collection. The entire experience would be fascinating if I weren't so completely terrified.

"What? Stop? You want me to stop now. All right! All right, see? I'm stopping..."

---

"What? Talk into this thing? Just... talk? I don't have to do anything else? Ow! All right! *Zap!* Ow! I said all right! Just stop!

"Good day. Um... good day, I think. My name is Andrew Endicott. On the night of May 17th, the year our Lord 1697, I was... I was taken. From my home in Salem Village. I... I do not know where I am, exactly, or why I came to be here. I have seen, through... windows... the stars, and sun, and beloved Earth. Down there, below me. So it would seem I am aboard some vessel, suspended in the ether. Ironically, it would seem, so close to where I thought Heaven must surely lie.

"But this is not Heaven. And my captors are not angels. I am not entirely unconvinced that the scripture is wrong. That Heaven and Hell are reversed. For my captives are devils. Demons from my nightmares. Even now they watch me, make me talk. They seem to want me to tell my story. I know not why. A record of their deeds, perhaps? Or am I just a pawn in some... some evil game.
And there are others. Other... captives, I mean. From whence they came I cannot say. Some wear strange dress, as if they are from... a different time. And some are... frozen! As in ice! Unmoving! But, I think... alive. I believe they plan the same fate for me. Will I be frozen, too? Will I...

"Ow! Stop it! I did what you said! You wanted me to talk, so I talked! Just leave me! Leave me be!"

---

"Where am I? Where's my sister? I can hear some weird noises, but I can't see you. Why is it so dark in here? What's this machine? Please... someone talk to me! I want to go home! Please! Where's my mommy and daddy?! I just want to go home!

"OW! That's bright! Ugh... wait... what... OH MY GOD! NOOOOOOO! Stay away from me! GET AWAY!"

---

"Oh man I've seen this on TV...... You're going to eat me, aren't you? I'm like sort of delicacy on your planet right? RIGHT? Well I hope you choke! I hope you stuff your stupid little green faces and choke to death! Unless this is like the other show where I get put in to some sort of weird alien zoo... that might be ok..... "

---

"Hello, Mr. Alien. Yeah, I know... I'll talk into the thing. I don't know why you brought me back here. We've done this a whole bunch of.... Hey! Giddyup Buttercup! Wow! I always wanted one of those!... Why do you have one? I don't understand... What do you want? It's a toy. A TOY. Why are you so excited? You're weird."

---

"Oh man... what did you... why can't I feel my arms... wait... are those... are those MY ARMS? WHAT DID YOU DO? OH GOD, PUT THEM BACK! PUT THEM BACK ON!"

---

"Oh! I see! Like a tape recorder, right? You just want me to talk? I can do that, certainly.
Hello there! I'm Madeline Wallace. Of the Cincinnati Wallaces? Well, I... I'm here, on this rocket ship. I'm with the strange men, the space men. The ones who brought me here. My entire family is onboard, actually. My husband, Roy, daughter Margaret, and my son Arthur, as well. Oh, you should see Arthur! He's so excited. He says this is much better than the things they show on Captain Cosmos. And I have to say - I agree! Everything is just so... fantastical! I can only hope our hosts have been talking with Uncle Sam. Because with these doohickeys, we'd have the Reds beat in no time!

"Hmmm? I'm terribly sorry, sir. I'm doing my best. I really don't know what you want me to say.
Whomever will listen to this recording, I would just like to state that if you find yourself in the same boat as the Wallaces, don't be afraid. I'm not entirely sure what our hosts want, but the situation has been entirely acceptable. We have been treated fairly. Anyway, the space man is waving his little electrical stick thingy, so I think I'm done. Goodbye!"

---

"Oh God, what are you doing to me? What's that thing? Get it out of me! Ahhh.... that hurts... oh, please... stop... no.... "

---

"Just wait until I tell Marsha and Karen about this! Imagine... I'm actually on a SPACEship!

"Oh, they're pointing at... oh, talk in to this? What is this? Is this the space phone? Hey Marsh, this is Janet, you will NEVER guess where I am. Never. Ohhhhh... I wish I could hear you but I'll just tell you. I'M IN SPACE! I was driving along the highway when there was this light... and suddenly, I'm on this real spaceship! No joke! Now all these little green men are making all these noises and pointing at stuff trying to talk to me! I bet I'm the first one they've met! So I figure I'll talk with them a while, then I'll join you later and I can tell you all about it over lunch! Oh, if I only had my camera. Well, they're pointing at some table with all sorts of gizmos sticking out of it. Gotta go! Kisses! "

---

"I can't feel my legs... what did you do to my legs... Frank? I can't see you... Frank? Frank! What did they do to you?! .... Aaaaaghhhhhhhhhh!!"

---

"What? What the fuck is this thing? Ya got some kind of Martian sex machine, you sick fuck? Uh uh. No way- Ahh! God DAMNIT! Fuckin' crazy-ass Moon Man! Go ahead! Do your worst!

"Gaaaaahh!! Jesus H! Do you not get it, space cadet? I. Do. Not. Fucking. Understand. What. You. Want. Me. To. Do! ... This thing? This? What? Talk? I AM talking! What do you want me to say?! Blah blah blah, yakkety yakkety! That all you assholes can say?! Space men with all this science, and you can't even speak fuckin' English?

"Okay, how's about this. My name is Vin. I am on a fucking UFO. I'm from Flatbush, and I want to get home. Can I get a taxi, please? How's that? Huh? That work for ya, starstruck? What? Don't you raise that fuckin' thing to me again... Oh, you gonna hit me again? Is that... Agggghhhhh!! Sonofa... Why don't you go back to Uranus, huh? Ha ha ha *ZAP* Agggh!"

---

"This is my final message. If this doesn't work, I hope someone gets this recording and can bring it back to Earth. I've been able to figure out how to use some of the alien devices, like this recorder, and I think I know what they want with our world.

"They mean to take as many of us as they can and change us into... some sort of abomination. Many have been killed because of their experiments. They've been keeping us in cells, and then moving us one by one to their experimentation labs. I've managed to escape, but they are looking for me.

"You've got to send help up here. As far as I can tell, they're never going to stop until they've captured hundreds... maybe thousands of us. The good news is that they're totally reliant on technology. Without it, they're no tougher than you or I. A small, well-equipped force could take this ship and free all of the prisoners on board. That's your best chance.

"I've got to keep moving, so I need to hide this tape. Good luck to all of us, and godspeed."