We were invaders. We were killers. We were an infection, and humanity, with its armies and its scientists, fancied themselves to be physicians. They would cure us if they could, saving themselves at our expense, and even now, watching our ships light up the night sky, I couldn’t say they were wrong. We were here because we needed to eat. Because humanity was a garden, and we were a species of gardeners. But when the garden fought back, who could really blame it?

Another sphere of light slashed by ahead of us, so low that the shock wave of its passing struck and shook the car. “Whoa!” shouted Toni, struggling to keep control. The brakes squealed and the tires shrieked as we spun in a half-circle, coming to rest lengthwise across the road. Toni clutched the wheel, panting, her eyes wide white circles in the rearview mirror.

“They’re going to hurt a lot of people before this is over,” said Lucas.

Jeff laughed. “Really? That’s what you have to say about all this? That we’re going to hurt people? Newsflash, buddy: we’re here to conquer your planet.”

“With what, your cultural literacy and your asteroids? We’ve been practicing for this since video games were invented.” Lucas scowled at Jeff. “You don’t scare me.”

“We should,” said Jeff quietly.

“You should all shut the fuck up, is what you should do,” said Toni. She turned the key. The engine made a faint grinding noise. She tried again, with the same result. Slumping in her seat, she groaned and said, “Your makeup is about to get a field test. This thing’s dead.”

“What?” Mandy leaned forward in her seat. “That’s not possible. The scout ship didn’t even hit us.”

“Then maybe it has an EMP built into that fancy artificial comet tail it came flying in on,” said Toni. “Actually, that would explain a lot, since the dash went black while it was overhead, and it probably makes sense for ships that travel through the infinite fucking void of space to mess with mere terrestrial cars, but as you can’t disbelieve the electronics back on, we’re dead in the water.”

“Meaning what?” asked Jeff.

“Meaning we walk,” said Toni. Her expression was grim. “Let’s hope the road is kinder than the cities, huh?”

2.

If the road was inherently kind, it was not interested in showing that side of itself to us tonight. We walked along the shoulder in a rough single file, leaving our stolen SUV deserted where it had died. It weighed too much for us to shift, and any traffic coming along this road, this late at night, was likely to complicate our lives more than it improved them.