The New Neighbor Knocks Every Night at 3 AM, He Doesn't Want to Come In | Part 3
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When I wake up, I'm on the floor next to the chair. My brain, exhausted and throbbing, is assaulted by the three suns and their searing brightness. Streaming in through the still open door, I would just close my eyes and roll away from the light, but there is something standing just outside my doorway. A child. Blinking a few more times to adjust my eyes, I squint at the kid and frown. "What the fuck are you doing here?" I ask. They cock their head to the side,

The kid isn't wearing a translator. I'm inside, and the Habitat's comms have a translator, so I'll understand anything this kid says to me, but it won't matter much because the kid won't understand what I say to it. They lift a hand, point at me, then say, "My ball." "What?" I ask, and the kid backpedals in fear. I hold up my hands in a peaceful gesture, and the kid calms a little. Then I see what he wants.

Down by my feet is an orange ball, the universal toy for kids. Every planet I've been to, there is always some version of a ball that kids play with. "You want this?" I pick up the ball as I adjust my body and slowly get onto my knees. The kid nods and points at the ball, jabbing his finger at me repeatedly. Non-threatening items can pass the threshold of my habitat with no harm coming to them. I wonder if the kid would be considered non-threatening. Might be worth finding out.

"Here," I say, and hold the ball out, just inside the threshold. "Take it." The kid reaches out, then jerks their hand back. It shuffles a couple more steps back before studying the threshold. "Someone warned you," I say, and heave my body into the chair. "Of course they did." "Tevna!" A voice shouts from farther down the street. The kid starts to leave, then turns back, tears welling in its eyes.

"Fucking hell," I say. "Here!" I toss the ball. The kid catches it easily, gives me a small smile, then races away from my habitat toward the calling voice. It runs through the fake tree, of course.

With what little strength I have, I get up from the chair, key in the security code, watch the door close on the daylight, then drag the chair back into the kitchen. I attempt to make breakfast, but I can't call it "making anything" when all I'm doing is squeezing tubes of protein gel and starch gel into a bowl. I add water, find a spoon, mix it up, and choke it all down. Feeling only slightly better, I shamble through my bedroom to use the bathroom.

Then I strip down and get into the sonic shower to wash off some stink. The sanitizer is all gone, so it's just sonic waves for me. The vent in the ceiling sucks the dirt vapor up and cycles it through the air filtration system. I'll bet a million credits that the rest of the habitat will smell like my dirt for the next few hours, but I don't really care. I let the deodorizer spray me down, then I stumble over to my bed and collapse across it.

3 AM comes fast. The second knock finishes echoing through the habitat when I open the door. "Fucking hell!" Chuck says. He's standing there, eyes narrowed, hands on his hips, not looking pleased. "What?" I ask, then lift a finger. "Hold on." I fetch the kitchen chair and sit down. "Okay." I sigh. "Fucking hell what? Fucking hell!" Chuck repeats. "Is that an insult? Did you insult my youngest child?"

"Huh?" I reply and shake my head. "I'm confused. What the fuck are you talking about? Fucking hell!" Chuck snaps. "That's what you said to my child yesterday. I have no idea what you're-" Then it hits me. The kid with the ball. I shrug and blink a few times. "Okay, yeah, maybe." "You maybe insulted my child?" Chuck asks. But it's more accusation than question. Clarity reaches my addled brain.

"Chuck is pissed. Like really, actually pissed. Shit." "It's not an insult," I say. "It's an expression of frustration or surprise or whatever. Not an insult. It's the equivalent of a crude sigh. A crude sigh," Chuck echoes, then smiles brightly. "Oh, I get it. Okay, well, I'm glad you didn't insult my child. I'd have to turn the pain up high for that."

My entire body goes rigid as lightning rips through it. I'd scream, but per usual my jaw is clenched too tight. Then it's over, and somehow I manage to stay in the chair. "You said you wouldn't turn the bane on!" I gasp at Chuck. "What the fuck? I said I wouldn't turn it up high. And now I hope you have learned your lesson, won't curse in front of my child again, because he is now saying those words repeatedly to my life partner. Thank you very much, Ralphie."

"What the fuck was your kid doing here anyway?" Chuck shrugs. "You know how kids are. You have children, right, Ralphie?" I don't answer. "Back home, on your planet. A wife and two children." He leans forward, but not enough to cross the threshold. He pretends to look about my habitat. "We tried to make it look as close to the home in your mind as possible, but I am sure you miss your family. How old do you think your kids are now?" Again, I don't answer.

The kid and his buddy stood there, blocking our way to the crossroads.

"You're supposed to say hey back," the kid said. "That's what you do. I say hey, you say hey. Step aside," I said to the kid. "Or roll aside. I don't really care as long as you get the fuck out of our way." "Get the fuck out of our way," the kid echoed. "Get the fuck out of our way. I like that. I like how it sounds, don't you guys?" He looked back at his three buddies, and they nodded and smiled. "LT," Shun called out. "We got trouble.

"I know," I said without taking my eyes off the punk kid. "Do you have it handled, Corporal?" "For now, LT," Shunt said. "But I'm not liking the look of things." "Understood," I replied. Then I returned my full attention to the kid in front of me. "Step aside, or you will be moved aside." "LT?" Cabot cautioned from behind me. "Stoic, Sergeant," I replied, my attention never wavering from the kid. "Listen, kid, you got a name?"

"You don't need to know my name," the kid said. "You just need to say 'Hey! I'm not playing here, kid!' Step aside or you will be moved. Your boss has told you not to lay hands on adolescents." The kid responded. That was when I learned that smugness truly was universal. "You don't know what my bosses have told us we can and cannot do." I pulled the lever on the side of my rifle and charged it. It was already charged, but I wanted some dramatic effect. "Are you sure you want to find out?"

"You hurt us, and you'll be in a lot of trouble!" "You have no idea what trouble is, kid!" I put my rifle to my shoulder and took aim right between the kid's eyes. "Again, are you sure you want to find out?" I could see the fear in his eyes grow. He'd been cocky and sure because he thought we were handcuffed by orders, but I was tired. I had two fire teams ambushed with one wiped out, and a full fire team out there god knows where, probably heading right into a different ambush.

"LT?" Kansky called over the comms. "Go ahead," I replied. "The rovers are toast, sir," Kansky reported. "Repeat that, Sergeant. It looks like they've been firebombed," Kansky reported. "Total loss. Fuck." The kid cocked his head and then laughed. He looked over his shoulder at its buddies, and they laughed too. Then the punk focused back on me. "You hear something you don't like?" I ignored the kid as Kansky reported the severity. He was right.

The rovers were a total loss. "Looks like we're hoofing it to the FOB," I announced over comms to the rest of the team. "Kansky reported that the rovers are out of commission." "LT!" Shun snapped. "You better see this," Jenkins added. I whipped my head around and saw what alarmed them. The rest of the bike gang had reached us and they were more than we counted. A lot more. "Hoof it," the kid in front of me said. "I like that. Hoof it."

I ignored him, focusing on the 18 kids on bikes directly behind us. "Hey!" the kid shouted, and I whipped my head around. "What?" He rolled out of our way, and his buddies did too. "Better start. Wolfing it." He said. I debated. I seriously did. We were being set up, but for what? I didn't know.

I was within the rules of engagement to use a couple warning shots to scare the kids off. But my gut told me that was exactly what the punks wanted. "On me," I said, and set out walking again. Congo fell in behind me without a word. We passed the four kids, then we were completely clear of the town.

It was close to 10 mics before we reached the crossroads and could identify the rovers. "Jesus," Cabot said. "This is some serious escalation, LT. We need to call it in." "I'm on it," I said, and pointed to where Kansky and Negrew crouched over Walton and Guerra, off to the roadside. "You help them. Sean, Jenkins, and Mosfa set up a perimeter until we know if Walton and Guerra are stabilized enough for us to get them back to the FOB."

Everyone took up their assignments in a hurry as I dialed in the long-range comms, hoping to get Colonel Carpenter on the horn. "On the horn!" Chuck exclaims. "Oh, that is one of my favorites! Interrupt me again and I won't finish the story," I say. "But it's my favorite story! You know how it fucking ends." "But you tell it so well!" "I'm not fucking kidding, Chuck. You can torture me all you want, but I won't finish the story." "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes." "Do you really want me to test that, Ralphie?" Chuck asks, so very smug. I stand up from the chair and get as close to the threshold as I can. "Yes." He recoils an inch. "Damn, Ralphie. I think you actually mean it." I keep standing there. "Fine. No more interruptions. But just so you know, because you're being a little rude and confrontational, I'll have to ask you the questions once you're done with the story."

He shrugs. "Gotta do my job. You understand, right? We all have jobs to do." "Good point!" he says with a laugh. "And your job right now is to finish the story." We take a deep breath, let it out, then go back and sit in the chair.

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and people helping truckers fill up and get maintenance at our convenient locations. They're part of the more than 300,000 jobs BP supports across the country. Learn more at BP.com slash investing in America. Long range comms are down. I said to Congo and what was left of Laramie. We're on our own until we get to the FOB and I can contact Carpenter directly from there. Everyone nodded silently.

Long-range comms being down wasn't outside the norm, but it wasn't usual either. There could have been all kinds of reasons I couldn't get through to the fleet ships in orbit. The problem was, I didn't like any of those reasons, since most of them meant something bad had gone down. "Walton is gone, sir," Kansky said as he walked up to me. "We tried." "I know you did." I clapped him on his shoulder when he reached me. "You did your best. Just getting them out of there and to the crossroads put you and Negru in line for medals.

"Fuck medals," Kantsky replied. "Respectfully, sir." "I get it, Sergeant." "LT!" Shun shouted. I didn't even have to turn around to know why he called out. When I reached him, about 30 meters down the road toward town, I spotted the bike gang, now growing to an even bigger crowd than before. "Has to be close to 40 now," Shun reported. I did a quick estimation. My count was closer to 70.

"Drop a couple flashbangs their direction," I said. "Then bust ass back to us. I need you to carry Guerra back to the FOB. We're booking ass to safety ASAP." As Sean launched about a dozen flashbang grenades at the bike gang to cover our tracks with some seriously loud noise and smoke, I sprinted to the crossroads. "We're moving out now," I ordered over the comms. "Drop what slows you down. We need to be fast." No one even bothered sloughing off extra gear.

They were marines and would carry rovers on their backs in a hurricane just for the fuck of it. When Shun reached us, we helped get Guerra secured on his shoulders. He wanted Walton's body too, but I drew a line there, no matter how much he thought he could carry. It tore me up, but we needed speed. Then we booked it toward the FOB.

It was a hard run. The gravity weighed us down to begin with. Then add in fatigue and the stress of losing an entire fireteam, plus the rovers and no long-range comms. It was lucky all of us could put one boot in front of the other. You had to love Marines. Then the run came to a stuttering halt as something hazy appeared down the road through all the kicked-up dust.

"Safety's off," I ordered over the comms. "If any of these fuckers even blinks at us, light 'em up." "Done playing nice, LT," Mosfah called over the comms. "Done playing, period," I said. "These kids wanna act tough? Then we show them what tough gets them when dealing with fleet marines." "Hoorah," was the response, and I knew my people were prepped to do something that might haunt me the rest of my life. But it had become an us-or-them situation, regardless of the bike gang being adolescents.

When we reached the dozen or so kids, I took aim at the one in front. "Move or die!" I stated. I left zero room for interpretation in my inflection. The translator would not have an issue making my intentions known, and I could see it in the eyes of the lead kid, the one I'd talked to before back at the edge of the town. "You want fire?" the kid said. The kid was obviously their leader.

So, I adjusted my aim to the kid on his right and squeezed the trigger. The plasma blast obliterated the kid's head. The body stayed upright for a second, then tumbled over. Because plasma fuses pretty much everything, the headless corpse didn't even leak a drop onto the road. The neck thoroughly cauterized. Then I adjusted my aim back on the lead kid. "Now move or the rest of you die." The members of the bike gang in front of us were frozen in place.

"Mosva?" I asked over the comms. "We're still clear behind us," Mosva reported. "Flashbangs did the trick." "Good," I said, then returned my attention to the lead kid. "Move, last time I say it." The lead kid looked like he was gonna make a stand. I admired his guts, but felt pity for his intellect. It took a real dumb shit to go up against fleet marines after watching your buddy's head get vaporized. Then the lead kid slowly rolled out of our way.

There was a pause before the rest moved, but they did. We walked that gauntlet carefully. Rifles at the ready, eyes on the kids. Once past, we stepped up our pace and double-timed it to the FOB. By the time we reached the buildings that made up our forward operating base, the suns were setting. Shun and N'Gru rushed Guerra into the med building while the rest of us headed to the control center to debrief and maybe get a hold of the orbiting fleet ships.

Everyone was inside before me when I noticed something strange in the sky. I stepped away from the control center and stared upward, trying to figure out what I was seeing. The control center building blocked part of my view, so I jogged off about 10 meters, then adjusted my visor's settings and looked up again. Streaks of fire. That's what I saw in the dusk sky.

as if very large ships were falling through the atmosphere. It wasn't the first time I'd seen a sight like that, so I knew what it was almost instantly. "Cabot!" I shouted over the comms. "Call command now! I'm seeing something every..." That was all I could get out before the world around me lit up. The control center, the med building, the supply huts, the cantina, everything went up one after the other, becoming massive fireballs that lit up the dusk.

I couldn't see anything above me anymore because the light from the flames was so bright. The air was so oxygen deprived that our life support systems made the perfect bombs. So did our bodies. It was why flames shot out of our suits when our armor was breached and we were wounded. The fleet had invented sealant systems to immediately close off our armor when we were hit. But there was no stopping buildings from being blown up.

I was knocked about 50 meters away, and my body felt like bruised ass when I could finally stumble to my feet. I confirmed what I'd glimpsed as the buildings exploded. Everything except for the rows of habitats on what we called the streets were gone. Everything, including my people. The crunch of gravel got my attention, and I turned around to see the bike gang behind me. The lead kid rolled up, a huge grin on his splotchy face.

"Hey," he said, "Bet you didn't see that coming, did you?" I went to raise my rifle, but it was 15 meters away on my three, partially covered in dirt and gravel. The lead kid laughed. "Yeah, you didn't stand a chance," he said, then looked up at the sky. "None of you stood a chance. Fuck you." "No," the lead kid said, "you don't get to say things like that to me. Not with my father here."

"Lieutenant Ralph Gorman," a voice called from behind me. I whipped around and came almost face to face with a local. A very large local, dressed not in civilian clothing, but in the planet's military dress. I didn't even know there was a military presence in the area. But then I also didn't know they could destroy our orbiting fleet ships either, so it showed what little I fucking knew. "Lieutenant," the large soldier said, "follow me." "I'd rather not."

"Oh, I think you rather would," he replied. Before I could mock his syntax, several natives who stood behind him rushed forward and grabbed me. They dragged me, kicking and screaming away from the burning buildings and over to the habitats on the street. I fought and fought, but it made no difference. While I should have been able to take down half of them, especially with my armor on, something kept slamming inside my brain and confusing me.

I would yank my arm away, then my head would explode with pain, and they'd restrain my arms once more. Over and over. This happened until I was at my habitat's outside threshold. Before I knew what was happening, my helmet was ripped off my armor, and I was tossed inside the habitat before my head could combust. The energy barrier guarding the entrance to the habitat flashed bright blue as I skidded down the entranceway and came to a tumbling heap right in front of the kitchen.

After a few moments, I felt clear-headed enough to get to my feet. I didn't need to confirm that the habitat's atmosphere was good to go. With my helmet off, I would already have been dead if it wasn't, as I took a deep breath of semi-fresh air. I saw the guy who had addressed me before standing just outside the threshold of my habitat, my helmet in his hands. "Marvelous things, these habitats of yours," the guy said.

"Just like your other buildings, there is no way any of us can get inside without being turned into particles. But you can come outside, of course, anytime you'd like." He held up the helmet and smiled at me. "But you may not want to without this," he said. He turned to walk away. "What the fuck do you want with me?" I shouted. He paused, then faced me directly again. "I'm not sure yet. We have questions, of course. So many questions." "You won't get answers from me.

Possibly not. He adjusted his body to reveal the other habitats on the street. But I might get answers from your friends. What friends? I asked. You killed everyone. Oh no, we didn't. He shook his head. I believe they are called Fire Team Boca. They were captured as they entered a village a good way from here. I looked toward the visible habitats. Their entrance light glowed red, telling me the habitats were occupied but locked down.

Then I focused back on the guy, my captor. We will get the information we want, he said to me. One of you will eventually either tell us what we want or just give up. What does that mean? I snapped. He tapped his temple. Oh, we have ways of getting in your head. He pointed at me, then pointed past me. Take a look. I didn't want to turn away from him, but something tickled at the back of my brain. I glanced over my shoulder and gasped.

My habitat was not the sterile whites and grays it should have been. No, it looked like a mini version of the bungalow I shared with my family back home.

When I looked back at the guy, he smiled like I'd just been handed the perfect birthday gift. "We can't get fully inside your head," he explained. "That's why we have to resort to the question and answer method. But we can get in enough to know things about you, to alter your perception of your environment." The smile dropped away fast, and I had only a millisecond to realize how bad things were going to get.

The pain was excruciating. "We can also make you very, very uncomfortable if you don't cooperate," he said. "You'll learn." The pain went away, and I fell to my hands and knees, gasping as my head hung to the floor. When I could finally look up again, the guy crouched in front of me, staring hard. "I'll be back later tonight and every night, Ralphie," he said, then stood up. "Please don't be late to open the door. I'm on a schedule."

He started to walk away before hesitating. "Oh, and to make it easier on you so you don't have to think of me as 'that guy'?" he said. "You can call me Chuck. How's that sound, Ralphie? Fuck you." "Oh, I think that's your favorite word, Ralphie," Chuck said, then left. "Talk to you tomorrow." I stare at Chuck. Chuck stares at me. "That's my favorite story," Chuck says after a few seconds. "Do you know why, Ralphie?" "Because everything went boom?"

"Well, yes, that too. But it's so much more than that. Can't you guess?" "No, not really." "Come on, try." I sigh and shrug. He rolls his eyes. "It's because of the happy ending," he says. "Our first meeting. Who knew we'd become so close after all these years?" "Yeah, who fucking knew?" I spit. "Not me." I look out at the burnt-out husks of the others' habitats. "They certainly didn't," I add.

"Who? Them?" Chuck responds, following my gaze. "They were weak. When given the chance to keep going or to end it all, each one of them eventually opened that door and dropped that energy field. Talk about some booms." He laughed. I didn't. "Okay, enough reminiscing," he says. "Time to get to work. Can we skip it tonight?" I ask. I'm exhausted. Just the hint of pain creeps into my head.

Or go ahead and ask the questions, I say quickly. What's this? Is that cooperation I hear? I guess you'll find out. Ask the questions, Chuck. He does. I tell him to fuck off. Then I wake up in a pool of my own urine hours later.

I haul my ass off the floor, go clean myself up, eat some gel, clean up the entranceway, laugh at the sight of my baseball bat which I know isn't real, shuffle off to my bedroom, dutifully wind my watch, then crawl in for what little rest I can get. After all, there's a knock coming at 3 AM.