Alien state, p.1
Alien State, page 1
Behind the Wall: Book Five
Alien State
P.S. Power
Orange Cat Publishing
Copyright 2024
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter one
Jake winced as the top of his right foot slammed into the football. It smacked into contact hard enough to sting through the shoe he was wearing, as he put everything he had into making the ball fly straight. It was a sixty-yard attempt, which was extreme for him. Honestly, it was supposed to simply be him failing, since most high school kids weren’t going to land that sort of thing. Lonny, who had taught him how to kick could do it, so he’d pushed Jake hard on the matter. Truly, he was cheating, doing the move over and over again, using deep mental skills to basically allow him to remove the mental blocks that protected his body from destroying itself.
The ball flew high and straight, finally. The lights on the JV field they were using bright enough to see by, but it was well and truly twilight by the time they were playing the game that night. There was a crowd in the stands, but they’d come to see the other team, in the main, even if the drive to get there had been a long one. Nearly out of range to be allowed to play. He was staggering a little, trying not to fall down as the ball flew, barely over the uprights in the distance.
There was silence as he got his bearing again. Then he turned, not celebrating, as the twenty or so people from town who had come out on a Thursday night stood up, cheering.
Then, their team had won. Oh, certainly, it was the junior varsity team, not the important real game that would be played the next night, but it was rare that anyone beat Spearman, any Spearman team, on the first game of the season. Jake could see why, too.
His own team was made up of tough guys who had been working out since July, and in a few cases June, to get ready for the season. They were fit, mainly lean and hard in a way that showed dedication and real effort having been paid. The Spearman JV team looked like they were extras in a movie about young superhumans playing sports. Which, given the uniformity of it, had to mean they were all, mainly all of them, taking steroids.
“For a freaking JV spot? That’s insane.” He muttered the words, which had one of the other guys on his team, Carl, slapping him on the arm, grinning.
Then the dark-skinned guy waved at the stands. Where his team’s scant numbers were still standing.
“Yeah, that’s a bit much. Hardly anyone even came. It’s like they didn’t think we were going to win or something.” The guy, who Jake didn’t know well, to be honest, for all they were on the same team ran around hooting and pumping his arms then.
Jake’s right leg still stung, aching at the knee or rather right behind it, so he clapped, but didn’t dash around. That was going to hurt a bit the next day.
They were in Lawrence for that game and the JV field was actually a separate one from the varsity game location, which was a bit further from town. Instead of taking a bus there that day, most of the team had either gotten a ride, or simply walked. They still had some formalities to see to, however. Lining up to congratulate the other team on a tough game, in this case.
The Spearman team seemed a bit surly and as if they wanted to fight, having lost like they did. By only one point, and on a kick that, frankly, only two or three JV players in the country would have made. Even he’d had to reset time and do it over nearly forty times before it had worked out for him. Even then, it had just barely happened. It was cheating, of course.
So was using strength enhancing drugs. That part kind of left him pissed off, even if his team had held their own, really. The difference was that the line of people on his side, in yellow and black uniforms, holding their helmets for the most part, looked wrung out and as if they weren’t going to be moving right for the next week.
The other team just seemed angry and almost perfectly untouched. No one on that side was limping or holding ice packs to parts of their body.
The JV coach, Coach Lewton, smiled at the other side’s coach, shook his hand politely and said something that seemed to be good game. To his credit, even if disappointed the other man said it back. They managed the slapping of hands and muttering they all had to do without a fight starting, the other team glumly walking across the field to their locker room. Then his team did the same.
Again, with a lot of limping.
Even Jake was doing that part, which Coach Lewton noticed.
“You weren’t hit...”
He was just partially honest with the man, explaining.
“I can’t really make a sixty-yard field goal, not normally, so I kind of had to shut off part of my mind and override the part that stops me from damaging myself. That barely worked, but there’s a cost to doing it. I just couldn’t let those...” He stopped and shook his head. “Is there a polite way to point out that they all seemed to be on steroids? Anyway, I wasn’t going to let them win. Not when everyone else had gotten us to a tie like that.”
Lewton looked around, patting him on the back, as everyone else on the team headed to the locker room on their side. Then the man spoke in a low tone.
“I noticed that myself. The top ten winning teams do that kind of thing. We don’t at Lawrence, because the honest truth is that our odds of winning are always going to be small ones. Shortening the lives of our people to win high school games... We aren’t doing it. Still, this time we won anyway.”
Jake sighed.
“I get that one. Not killing our guys over that. We just don’t have a large enough pool to pull from.”
Literally. Half of the guys at school were on the football team after all. Even the nerdy tutor guy was. Every guy who had shown up to try outs was on the team, even. They had a hundred and forty-two guys at the school and literally seventy-one on the combined teams. It meant, he’d noticed, that you had to be on the varsity team to get any attention from the girls for it there.
Lou, dressed in a team jersey, wearing blue jeans, stood next to a clump of the varsity team inside the dressing room. Waiting for them. They’d been in the stands, even if they were supposed to be studying that night. Then, watching the competition’s second string play could be counted as that, given the game they had the next day. Interestingly, even if he hadn’t been on the sideline, the main coach was there as well. Standing back.
Smiling.
Coach Donnely didn’t get to speak yet, or even try to. Instead Lou stepped out.
“Yeah! That was freaking awesome!” He jumped around a bit, happily. As if it was a major victory, not just the game that didn’t really count and no one cared about. “Who rules? You do! Which means I do, by extension, so... Yeah!”
The other varsity team members with him cheered then. It was only five of the guys, but it was nice of them to bother coming out. Jake nodded at Lonny, who had basically taught him how to kick a football and trained him personally. The guy smiled back, clapping suddenly. Bix was standing next to Terry, with Dave behind them. All in team colors.
It had been a quarter of the audience on their side. The Spearman side had nearly filled the small stands, which had taken about two hundred bodies. The rest of the audience had mainly been parents or in a few cases other kids from school. Then it was only the first game of the season and the hardest team they were expected to face for the year had been their first game. Which they’d won.
On the lower team.
Coach Lewton moved forward then.
“Great job out there guys! I know that you’ll all want to celebrate, and you deserve to...”
The man stopped then and tightened his face. Clearly not wanting to be a killjoy. The man didn’t speak then, shaking his head for some reason. Finally Jake did it.
“It’s Thursday night though, so hold that for the weekend, after the Varsity team kicks Spearman’s ass again! This is a good start, a great one, but we aren’t going to lose momentum. Ten games, ten wins! Yeah!”
That got a cheer, since he was getting good at faking enthusiasm. Lewton grinned at him.
“That’s right. Ten games, ten wins! Now, ice and rest, and take it easy tomorrow, all of you. Get changed and get home safe.”
Coach Donnely waited for him to get dressed, sitting far off to the side, with the varsity guys, waiting for something. That, it turned out was Jake, who had a duffle bag, which, right on top had his notes from the game. He pulled that out and waved it a bit as he walked up to the man. It was just a blue spiral notebook, with drawings, primitive ones, inside of it.
The Coach tilted his head.
“You want my autograph? I can see that.”
Jake didn’t laugh, but Lou did, snagging the book and opening it.
“I get it! Jake wrote out all of the plays they made. We need to go over this. It’s probably what they’re going to be doing on offense tomorrow on the first-string side.”
Donnely grabbed the book and smiled, gently.
“Oohhh. This is good. I can even mainly understand it. I have my own notes, too, I can keep this, Hines?”
He nodded, fighting a si gh. It was another two-dollar notebook gone, for twelve pages of work, but he’d bought a bulk pack of them because that kind of thing just kept happening in his life.
“I’m keeping my pen, though. This doesn’t give us any time to practice, but...” It wasn’t going to help that much at all, he knew. Still the head coach, who seemed a bit tired almost all the time, nodded.
Then smiled again.
“It will let us arrange our defense a bit, if nothing else. Lewton, you’re with me. See you tomorrow, boys. Get some sleep.”
It wasn’t even six in the evening, for all it was sort of getting dark out already, but Jake nodded. So did most of the other guys. Then, carrying his large equipment bag, which was filled with slightly sweaty football gear that badly needed to be cleaned, he walked out, followed by the other guys. All of them excited enough to raise the energy level. Bix moved in beside him, though Dave waved, pointing a bit.
“My mom came to pick me up. I should get going. That was a good game. A hard one.”
Lou looked around, staring at the bus that Spearman had come in. It was red and white, with their name on the side. It even specifically said Spearman JV football on it. That was a bit much, really, to Jake’s way of thinking. He was staring a bit as well.
Lou shook his head.
“Those guys are monsters. If that’s their second stream, what’s their varsity team going to be like?”
Jake shrugged.
“Like them, only bigger and even more roided up, probably. Still, we’ll win.”
They walked, Dave jogging off with a wave. He was huge, and only a freshman, but on the varsity team. Then, the guy was genetically different, basically being a super soldier. His parents both literally were and the genetic augmentations they’d gotten had passed to their kid. It was one of their secret weapons for the next day. After all, David Malice wasn’t just twice as strong as the largest and strongest roided up man could be, he was faster and had high end endurance. Plus some other things that Jake didn’t know about for certain. Better hearing and vision, reflexes and all that.
Jake had sparred against him several times, and the truth was, even if he was a better technical fighter than Dave, the other guy pretty much beat him each time, even moving slow and holding most of his strength back. He just responded too quickly to be kept up with, unless Jake redid time over and over again, to cheat. Then he could keep up, as long as the bigger guy wasn’t trying too hard.
The same was true of Bix, for a very different reason. He was stronger than Dave, smaller and could run two hundred meters in about four seconds. That was down to being a half-vampire. He was also good looking, and seemed a bit pale, but highly fit and symmetrical through the face. In short, like he belonged on a television program. One about a half vampire-football player.
That was two guys though, and while the rest of the team was hard and good, they weren’t on drugs to make them stronger. It wasn’t really going to be a fair game at all that way. Jake tilted his head, then didn’t speak, since Lonny was there. Terry as well.
They were normal people and didn’t really get that the world was strange and different than they’d always been told it was. Lou was a regular guy as well, but oddly accepted that there were things out there that weren’t exactly what they were taught in school. At least, he wanted to believe that.
He wasn’t wrong.
Jake nearly jumped when Terry spoke, suddenly.
“Um, we should get Sophie to do a spell or something. So we can win?”
It was a real idea, though Jake tilted his head a bit. That was taken as questioning, or even doubting the curly haired guy.
He wasn’t, simply thinking about what they’d need for that, and what kind of spell would work best. Sophie was a blood mage. Also tied to the local reality anchor, as its guardian. She could do a lot, but it wasn’t chaos magic, which would be nearly invisible. She worked in forces. Energy blasts and twisting light or even gravity to her own ends. It was powerful for her, but kind of obvious. Other blood mages could do different things than that, not being tied to a point in space that held reality into the most boring form possible.
Terry was about to speak again, blushing, when Lou spoke up.
“Yeah, I agree. She’s into some kind of wicca or something and I’ve seen her do some things. Real stuff. Glowing and making things move at a distance.”
Jake shook his head then, the older guys, Terry and Lou, glaring at him, as if he were going to spoil the fun. That or call them liars, or fools.
“We should see if Mr. Prentis will do that for us. Away from home, at the home game field. What’s that called again? I’ve never been there.”
Bix shrugged.
“Braxston Bowl.”
Jake nodded then. A lot of things in the area had that name. It was probably part of the town history.
“We’ll have to sacrifice something. A chicken or two, probably. That or a goat or sheep. Only, I don’t have any sheep at the moment. I need to get some, since mutton is going to be popular around the holidays, I think. That will need to be done in secret, if possible. Before the game. I’m not sure what will work best for that.” He knew some spells, but most of those had been very complex. Things that he’d had to memorize before using them and taking up to nine days to perform.
Bix glanced at him, which told him, subtly that he was being too weird.
Lou just slapped him on the back.
“Prentis, that’s the guy you know who does magic stuff? Um, who helped with that thing, with Junie?”
Jake said nothing, kind of surprised Lou understood that was already in the past tense.
Tightening, not adding any information, he planned to change the topic. Only, Terry spoke up.
Seeming a bit dark.
“I heard about that. From Sophie and Scott. Those fuckers who raped Junie when she was a little girl were kidnapped and then... Dealt with. Permanently. There was demon shit involved, too. Jake killed June’s creepy aunt and then there were some vampires, who did one of the other guys. Prentis sacrificed the third one. Then they cut their heads off, so that Junie would know they were dead for certain.”
Jake closed his eyes, still walking, scrambling to make it into a tall tale that had never happened if he could, when Lou nodded.
Because of course he did. That only made sense at the moment.
“I’m not supposed to say anything, but I heard the same thing, from Junie. I knew that something was in the works, so asked her about it. That sounded pretty hard core. I should have been there, but it was done up on the hill. Totally legally, too? She pointed that part out, several times. That the government had taken them, so it wasn’t kidnapping, it was an arrest. Then they killed them all. Real, legal, execution, if a secret one. The demon thing sounds a little over the top. Scary though.”
Lonny didn’t look at the others, locking onto Jake. His little protégé. The one who hadn’t told him about anything like that at all. Because clearly, they weren’t supposed to be doing that. Blabbing everything to the whole town was a good way to end up being called out for it. Even if it had been legal.
He was about to deny it, and claim it was a lie to make him seem more interesting that someone had made up, when Lou spoke again.
“I knew about it from Jake’s hot aunt. Laura. The people up on the hill had them taken in the night. There was something about super soldiers, too.”
Lonny shook his head.
“This sounds like a bad movie plot.”
Jake smiled then and sighed.
“Exactly. That’s all it is. A poorly made-up story. Not even good gossip. Not the kind of thing to talk about. Ever. Made up stuff that won’t help anyone at all.” He glared a bit, at Bix, then Lou, even if the football team captain wasn’t supposed to really know any better. Both of them winced at least.
Then for good measure, he did it toward Terry. The gay guy took longer to process things, then, slowly, nodded.
“Shit. I... Honesty thought that was all just a story... Cool. Yeah, nothing happened. Got it. So, um, magic is real?”
It was probably a good enough direction to take things, so Jake nodded.
“Some of it. For it to actually work you have to do some real things. Know the right languages, sacrifice animals or be born with a gift for it and be good at what you’re doing. You can learn how to make it happen, for some of it. Blood magic is like that, but some other sorts are, too. Some you have to start with the ability to do. The thing is, most people don’t want to sacrifice sheep, cows or goats most days. You need to save that kind of thing for when it’s the only real way to even the playing field.” You could do more than that, of course.
