Morning in a shelter is something of an experience.

There’s a massive queue for the washroom. If you happen to be one of those who wake up early - really early, like five a.m. - you may be able to get into one within an hour of lining up.

Otherwise, you can wait for your turn, which may come around lunchtime. The crowd thins a bit around lunchtime, since nobody wants to miss lunch.

Yes, I missed the shower queue the first day.

Fortunately, the bathrooms are a bit easier to access. Ten seconds, in and out, to use a urinal.

The women’s bathrooms are generally a bit more congested, or so I discovered when Anne met me in the breakfast line.

“There’s a mile-long line,” she grumbled as we helped ourselves. “And there’s fat ladies screaming everywhere.”

I applied cold jam to the burnt toast. “Why were the fat ladies screaming?”

“All sorts of reasons. There was this one bitch who jumped the line….”

“Language.”

“Seriously?”

“.... It just felt like a thing to say.” I shrugged sheepishly. “I have no idea why I would complain about your swearing…”

“Maybe you’re actually someone’s dad and channelling your pre-amnesia behaviour.”

“Do I look old enough to be someone’s dad?”

“No, you look like a high school senior.”

“Let’s find a table, high school junior.”

Anne balanced her paper plate and glass of milk, I balanced mine, and we set out in search of a table to sit at.

It turned out to be quite a challenge. The cafeteria was alive with toddlers running all over the place, parents juggling their kids and food together, other people congregating in groups, and everyone yelling at the top of their voices. There were plenty of abandoned chairs, but finding an empty table seemed impossible.

After dodging the eighth pair of screaming children, I saw Anne point to a table. Its single occupant was an older gentleman in a wheelchair.

“Let’s ask him if we can share,” Anne whispered.

I nodded and approached the table. “Excuse me, sir?”

The man stared at me with piercing blue eyes. “Can I help you, son?”

“My sister and I were wondering if we could share the table with you.”

“Oh.” The gentleman’s expression softened. “Of course. Please.”

We grabbed a couple of chairs and seated ourselves. Anne tucked into the toast with relish; I suspected she’d been hungrier than she let on. I bit gingerly into mine.

The senior citizen watched us wolf down our first slices, then asked, “Have you been in touch with your parents?”

We shook our heads. Anne added, “We’re checking the bulletin board every now and then.”

“Have hope. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Just Dad,” Anne corrected. “Mum …. passed a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure your dad will be fine. Don’t lose faith. I’ve seen parents reunited with their children after weeks, sometimes.”

“We?” I inquired. “Were you with the … the relief workers?”

“Actually, I was with the Army. Lost my legs in ‘72, at the Battle of Chicago.”

“Oh,” I added. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Not as sorry as I was to lose them,” he grinned. “William Ryman, Sergeant, U. S. Army, now retired.”

“Andrew,” I introduced myself, “and this is Anne.”

“Nice to meet you. Where are you two from?”

“We live in Pendleton,” Anne said. “I was on a school trip.... I mean, Andrew and I were on a school trip.”

“I see. Were you close to the attack?”

“Very close,” I explained. “A spaceship attacked the building and we had to run away. We…. encountered some aliens too. Almost got shot.”

“It sounds as if you had a close escape. Very few civilians can claim to have faced the enemy and survived. Few enough soldiers, too, as it stands.”

“How do the Sarnak get on the ground?” I asked.

Sergeant Ryman’s face furrowed. “Sarnak?”

“The aliens. The ground troopers with the big guns.”

“Is that a new slang term for them? I’ve never heard of them being referred to by that name before.”

“Er….”

“Yes, it is,” Anne interrupted. “Young people slang. You know. Slag, bosh, Sarnak.”

Ryman smiled. “I’m sure. It is one of the positive traits of the younger generation that they add to the diversity of the vocabulary of a language.”

“Huh?”

“Young people invent new words,” I paraphrased.

“Eloquently put,” Ryman nodded. "Still, you were lucky to escape. It usually takes a tank to bring down one of those …. creatures."

"I see. But can't we stop them from getting on the ground in the first place?"

Ryman frowned. "Young man…. do you understand how the shield works?"

"No."

"Didn't they teach you in school?"

"I, uh, I must have missed that part. Sorry."

Sergeant Ryman's expression seemed to radiate disappointment in the school system. Still, he nodded. "If you are interested, I can explain the basics."

"Sure."

"Since the aliens first appeared in 2060, Earth has been guarded by a defensive shield. We don't know who created it. All we know is that on 2nd January, 2060, an alien ship appeared above our skies, broke up into pieces, and left behind a single orbiting station."

"Fortress Skyguard," added Anne.

"Absolutely, young lady. Fortress Skyguard is the source of the planetary shield that circles the globe. Every part of the world is protected equally by the shield. We don't have the technology to build a shield like it, and probably won't for a long time."

"I heard there are ultras who can make shields," Anne said.

"Some inventors make shields that can protect a car, or a house. Skyguard's shield encircles the entire planet. That's just a little bit harder to do."

Anne grinned. "I suppose."

"Anyway, the theory is that Skyguard also gives people powers. Somehow. That's where ultras come from."

"They say it's never been proven."

"Do you believe that?"

Wordlessly, the young woman shook her head.

"The aliens showed up with their battlefleet almost a year later. That's when the attacks began.

"Alien ships can't enter our atmosphere directly, thanks to the shield. The aliens have massive energy cannons, any one of which could reduce a city to ash in hours. However, the shield stops them from getting through.

"It takes several days of intensive bombardment from those cannons, but sometimes the aliens can breach a spot in the shield. Not for long - the breaches last only seconds, and then the shield resets to its original strength, which means they have to start over. However, while the spot is breached, they can slip in a small force."

I felt a bit ill. "What attacked us was a small force?"

"Tiny. Tanisport got hit by maybe a half dozen strikecraft and one or two troop transports. Possibly a couple of hundred ground troops. As far as we know, the aliens have dozens of ships in orbit, each having thousands of soldiers and hundreds of strikecraft."

"But…. Can't we stop them once they get through? If they attack just below the spot…."

"They don't. Their ships breach a spot somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and then the strikecraft and transports flood through. Those move at almost thirty times the speed of sound. Our fastest interceptors can do Mach 7."

"So…. the aliens' ships are four times as fast as ours?"

"Correct. And they can reach their target city in minutes. We don't know which city it is until they punch through and start moving in its direction. Once they get there…. Well, that's where the Army and the Air Force try their best." He sighed. "Much as I hate to admit it, without the heroes, we wouldn't be able to deploy fast enough to respond.

"In fifteen minutes, the aliens can reach a city nine thousand kilometres from their intrusion point. That's almost a quarter of the way around the world. Only when they get through and set their coordinates do we know which direction they're going to hit us. Sometimes there are multiple cities along the line, so we don't know which to defend.

"It's not that we don't try. The Stratospheric Guard puts its best fighters in the path of the break and tries to stop the enemy. Few of them survive. The Army has rapid response teams and entire brigades attack the aliens. Again, very few survive a battle. The only ones who can keep up with the aliens are the ultras."

"Ultras? … oh, ultrahumans."

"Yes. Most of the aliens are stopped or driven back by ultras."

"The Army must have a lot of them."

A pained grimace. "Ultrahumans aren't permitted to serve in the military."

"What? Why not?"

"Back in 2060 there was an ultra called Blindsinger. A soldier, could kill people with his song. One day he just snapped and went rogue. Killed a lot of people before someone could stop him. Ever since then, the US military has had a ban on ultras in uniform."

"Because of one man?"

"The ban was temporary. They were talking of withdrawing it in 2070.... and then Agni happened."

"Agni... you mean, like fire?"

“Yeah, that's what it means."

“What did she do?”

“Back in 2070, there was a civil war in Pakistan. The South wanted to break away from the North. The army was on the side of the government; the major ultras were on the side of the South. The leader of the ultras, King Shah, hired Agni to fight for the South. And fight she did.

“Agni struck at night, hitting a number of Pakistani army bases and their surroundings. The fires she started burned more than a hundred thousand soldiers to ash. And then she went after their families.”

“She attacked the families of the soldiers?”

“Burned them alive. Wives, children, parents – she hit the base housing in city after city, set them on fire. In one night, she killed two hundred thousand people.” Ryman’s smile was sickly. “The South Pakistan government absolved her of wrongdoing; North Pakistan considers her a war criminal; and her own home country of India expelled her as a terrorist.”

“Did they catch her?” I asked.

“She’s still at large. Surfaced in Sudan and killed an ultra who was in charge of their military; showed up in South America again and killed another bunch of people. So far, nobody knows what she looks like, or when she’ll strike again. What we do know is this – no soldier wants to have the next Blindsinger or Agni by their side.”