Hub City Blues

Name: Martha King

Height: 5 feet, 5 inches

Weight: 155 pounds

Age: 67

Hair: White

Eyes: Brown

Distinguishing features: None

Occupation: Computer scientist and technologist; Nomad Scout, Eastern United States.

Known Relatives: Husband, son-in-law, daughter, grand-son, grand-daughter

History: One of only a few small town survivors from upstate New York, Martha was rescued by Elwood King nearly twenty years ago. Martha’s family was killed during the initial assault and reveal of the alien invaders who had been living on Earth for decades in plain sight appearing as trees. Martha was educated as a computer scientist and was working as a datacenter manager before the Arrivals disrupted world wide power systems. After the death of her family, she was devastated and refused to participate in any level of interactions for a time. Elwood, even with the horror of the invasion found the Arrivals to be fascinating and even beautiful in their diversity. After staying with Elwood for two years, she began to realize society as we understood it was ending without people taking an active role in shaping that future. She began to work with the local government to begin spreading communications and support technologies allowing small computer and communication technologies to be re-established.

Today: Martha, unlike Elwood, has no love of the Arrivals, and is trying to do everything in her power to destroy the Arrivals. She takes the meeting of the President of the Eastern United States as a sign and has redoubled her efforts to find a weakness in the Arrivals. Elwood’s vast understanding of the creatures has given them an amazing advantage and she has begun to see an underlying logic to the Arrivals and their development. This understanding has lead her to believe and with the collaboration of the government, there is a timetable to recent developments in the Arrivals and their behavior. Unless they can discover what is happening, the human race is not likely to last another decade as the Arrivals choke humanity into tighter and smaller quarters all over the planet.

Psychological Profile:  Martha is a cool customer since the loss of her family and protects her new family with the strength of a lioness. She is a capable leader and often takes control of the family or nomadic unit when Elwood is out of contact or out of commission. She defers to his judgement in regards to the Arrivals as he is considered to be one of the world’s foremost practical authorities of their behaviors. She is the leading authority on the new technical network being established in the Eastern United States and wants to push the network westward in the hopes of establishing further connections to human outposts that might still remain in order to allow them to coordinate food, resources and services. Considering the state of the world at the moment, Martha might be considered less than stable if she were found in the Pre-Arrival US, but by post-Arrival standards, she is the model citizen; self possessed, focused, dedicated, and capable of surviving anything the world can throw at her.

First Appearance: Tales of the New Earth

Story Description: 
In The Arrivals: Tales of A New Earth, an alien invasion has occurred, but unlike anything imagined. New life has landed on Earth and is replacing everything before it. Humanity had expected alien invaders to arrive in terrible space craft, armed with the most sophisticated of weapons. When they came, we thought we would have a chance against them. We never even knew they were here and had lived here for decades, perhaps even centuries, masquerading as trees. When the meteor swarms began, we had no idea, the invasion had begun, in earnest.

The Arrivals: Tales of a New Earth features Elwood King, a sixty year old former forest ranger, wandering this new world, secretly in love with it alien beauty and fecundity. He sees a dying world reborn with new life. His more practical wife, Martha who would love nothing more than to eradicate the alien menace to the last spore.

Staying on the move, he and his family experience this new world on the front lines, sharing information for temporary room and board. When they rescue the President of the United States from the ruins of the Pentagon, they discover the Arrivals have continued to change the Earth to an unknown purpose. She conscripts Elwood and his family to guide her West to the center of the contagion and the answers they are all seeking.

Tales of a New Earth is broken down into four Seasons, each bringing new threats, challenges, beauty and terror as the Arrivals transform the Earth to an unknown purpose. Mankind, decimated, struggles to find a place in this New World. Humanity as we knew it is doomed, the only question is can we understand what is happening in time to resist?