Inheritance

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It didn’t seem like such a good idea now that they were outside.

Across the street a line of National Guard soldiers stood with rifles in hand, blockading a vehicle that looked like it had come out of a science fiction movie. Shaped roughly like a bird, it was about the size of a city bus and black as the triangle above. What looked like wings were folded against the vehicle’s muscular black walls, making it seem as if it could leap into the air at any moment. A crow had alighted on the roof, its black feathers gleaming in the August sunlight. It turned its head as if to watch the scene below, where several silver robots waited with snub-nosed weapons in their metal hands, facing the National Guard troops. The robots had humanlike bodies, but their heads had no eyes.

Reese’s hand was clammy with sweat and it slipped against David’s, but he tightened his grip as if he were holding on to the edge of a cliff. The reporters were a blur before her, their faces smudging into one another as waves of emotion rose up the front steps and slammed into her and David. She had experienced this unusual sensitivity to a crowd’s feelings before. It had happened when she and David got off the plane at Travis Air Force Base a few hours ago, where they’d been met by a different group of reporters. She knew it must be related to her adaptation—the alien DNA that had been added to hers—but the knowledge didn’t make the reality any easier to bear.

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