Alien vs. Alien

Festival, and they were all panicked. People were screaming and running and generally acting like it was the end of the world. Because it sure looked like it.
    “The invaders don’t have to do anything,” Christopher shouted as we jumped onto the wall of the Reflecting Pool to avoid getting trampled. “Everyone’s going to kill themselves just to get away.”
    “We have to do something.” Not that I had any idea of what.
    “Stop it!” Jeff bellowed. “Calm down!”
    No one bellowed like my man. He was easily heard above the others. And the people around us sort of stumbled to a halt.
    If we’d had time, Jeff probably could have gotten the calm to spread. But we didn’t have time.

    Yi

CHAPTER 94

    O NE OF THE FLYING SAUCERS FIRED what looked like a laser beam toward the Washington Monument. But the beam didn’t hit the monument. It hit a supersoldier.
    Our army was here.
    Amazingly enough, the supersoldier didn’t disintegrate. It took its licking and kept on ticking. Nice to know Titan Security had created the Timex Line of supersoldiers. Especially since they were fighting on our side.
    Whether this shocked the space invaders or not I couldn’t tell, but the ships fired again. And more supersoldiers lifted up and took the hits. The sky was already too filled, and the ground was too chaotic for me to be able to determine if any of the lasers had hit anything other than a supersoldier.
    However, giant metal monsters fighting on our side or not, the people here didn’t know and didn’t care. The screams increased, as did the panic.
    “People are being trampled!” I almost jumped off and tried to help, but Jeff grabbed me.
    “Our goal isn’t one person, it’s the world.”
    He was right. Dug my phone out and tried to make a call. As far as I could tell, I connected with Tim, but I couldn’t hear anything. “We need help with crowd control!” I shouted into the phone. Then I hung up and contemplated my options. It wasn’t a great idea to casually stand around texting while the world blew up around me. Hopefully that one call to Tim made an impact, because that was it for telecommunications.
    The invaders hadn’t needed to knock those out after all. The human herd was panicking, and that was all it took. Jeff and Christopher both had their phones out and seemed to be having the same kind of one-sided, mostly useless conversations I’d had. Dropped my phone back into my purse as they hung up and put their phones away.
    A group of people slammed into us. I got separated from Jeff and slammed into Christopher. We both went into the water, but he managed to keep us steady and, more importan`tly, upright. Jeff shoved through, grabbed my hand, and pulled us out of the water. “Run!” We took off.
    We were moving so fast that we were actually running on top of the water. Didn’t have time to marvel—we were too busy dodging people who were scrambling to get out of the way of either the lasers or the supersoldiers. Or each other. The Reflecting Pool was only a minor roadblock—plenty were willing to get wet if it meant they could get out of the way faster.
    Jumped off the end and raced to the World War II Memorial. People were running all over it, but this Memorial had two small, raised stone gazebolike structures on either side of it. A-Cs could jump well, and these weren’t that high, so we leaped up onto one of them, which got us out of the way of the crowd.
    “How long before someone launches a nuke?” I asked.
    “Soon, I’m sure.” Jeff leaned on me.
    “You okay?”
    “I’m blocking. The terror’s too much. I’d already be out if not for the adrenaline.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, I’m good. I can’t feel anything much, baby, so don’t get lost.”
    “I wasn’t the one who was missing for half the afternoon.”
    The crowd was running in all directions. More lasers shot down on us. The supersoldiers blocked most of them. But not all.
    A blast went through the Reflecting Pool. Which would have been okay—it was repairable. The people in the pool, however, weren’t. There were a lot of them, all blown to bits.
    I was thankful Jeff couldn’t feel anyone’s reactions, though I’m sure my screaming was probably enough. I knew I was at the dog-only register. Not that it mattered. No dog was going to pick my screams of horror out from the rest of the crowd.
    The water that was left in the Reflecting Pool was red, and so was much of the stone. Body