“Yes,” Willy answers.
The alien ship takes off vertically at about a forty-five degree angle. When they are just above the clouds, the speed begins to increase and suddenly the three are thrown back into their seats.
They cannot believe the unnerving silence. They expected loud rockets like the spacecraft and aircraft they know. But, the alien ship is not propelled by rockets. No human has ever traveled this fast. They are moving at twice the speed of the space shuttle.
They arrive in eastern Russia relatively close to Alaska in less than half an hour. The three see an expansive valley with green, rolling, grassy mountains and a sparkling river. The ship touches down near the river.
“That was the most intense thing ever!” Nicky yells.
“We have to do that again, but only after I throw up,” Isa says holding her hand to her mouth.
“Please travel to this location.” The ship interrupts them. The holographic image shows them where the entrance is. It was about ten miles northeast of their location, past the river at the bottom of a mountain.
The three step out, adapt, and cautiously race towards the facility.
They arrive a few seconds later. Like many of the things the Chreé have built, this facility is underground.
“I sense our clones. Many of them are guarding the facility. Z told me on the call that he was able to modify the cloning process without being detected. These clones should not be able to sense us like the first six,” noted Isa.
“Really? When were you going to tell us this?” Willy asks Isa.
“Sorry, in all the excitement I forgot,” Isa apologizes.
“Okay, well, that will give us a tactical advantage,” Willy says.
“Yeah, and we’ll need any advantage we can get,” Nicky agrees.
They huddle behind a large rock just outside the facility.
“Careful, guys. Even when adapting to our surroundings, they may be able to make us out because of their enhanced sight,” Isa warns them.
“Isa, could you sense where some of them are? Maybe we could find a way in,” Willy says.
“I sense a large group; follow me.” They follow Isa. “Here, just below us. It must be where they’re being cloned.”
“Let me give it a shot.” Nicky manifests his claws and starts to dig.
“Wait. Slow down. We don’t want them to hear us,” Willy warns.
After a few minutes, Nicky reaches the outer wall.
“This has to be several feet of concrete. If we break in, our stealthy entrance will be compromised,” Willy says.
“Wait a minute … we look just like all of them. So why not just walk in? You told us Z says he modified the cloning process so they can’t sense us,” Nicky suggests.
“I agree. It’s worth a shot, but where’s the front door?” Isa asks.
“I have an idea. We spoke about our unique abilities. You know what bears do best, besides eat? They smell. I would guess the strongest smells will come from the entrance. Just follow my nose.” Although they have a sense of smell vastly superior to any earthly organism, Nicky’s is far more acute because of his merger with a grizzly bear. Nicky begins sniffing for the entrance.
“Smell? This isn’t going to work,” Willy says skeptically.
“Trust me, my little Chuck Norris.” Nicky starts walking. Nicky leads them to what he believes to be the entrance.
“This has to be it,” Nicky declares.
“I doubt it,” Willy responds.
They look for a way in until the surface opens and a door lifts vertically from the ground. An Isa and Willy clone walk out. The three quickly enter.
“I told you I’d find it,” Nicky smirks at Willy.
“Even if their senses are nowhere as sensitive as ours, they may eventually figure out who we are,” Isa states.
“Yeah, let’s destroy this place and get the hell out of here, as quickly as possible,” Willy declares.
They begin to casually walk down a hall.
“I see. As usual the Chreé have the best interior decorators money can buy. Can one of them not merge with Martha Stewart?” Nicky laughs. The other two don’t find him as quite funny as he finds himself.
A clone of Nicky approaches the kids.
“Careful. When he smells us, he may be able to tell we’re not one of them,” Isa warns them.
Nicky decides to have a conversation with him. “Hey! Um … Sorry me, I mean clone, I mean, ahh … forget it.” Nicky punches him in the jaw and knocks him out. “Ha! I just knocked myself out … literally.”
A strange deep, almost robotic, voice comes through telepathically; it’s a Watcher.
“What has transpired?” The Watcher inquires in the Chreé language.**
“Our brethren was not following protocol. He was neutralized for disposal,” Willy tells the Watcher in a monotone voice.**
“Acknowledged,” the Watcher responds.**
“Phew! I overheard a guard say something like that once,” says Willy relieved. “We have to find and take out the Watchers first. Isa, can you sense them?”
Isa closes her eyes. “Yeah, I sense them, follow me.”
They try to walk inconspicuously through miles of white corridors to a small door.
“Here … we have to be fast, or they’ll alert everyone,” Isa warns them.
“I’ll take the door. Ready, go!” exclaims Willy.
With one kick, the door explodes open. There are five startled Watchers standing inside. The three immediately take all five of them out.
“Do you sense any others?” Willy asks Isa.
“No. That’s all of them.”
“Now let’s find where they make these things,” Willy says.
Willy closes his eyes and concentrates on his enhanced hearing. He has the most sensitive of the three, a trait from the grey wolf. “The most intense sounds are coming from down this hall. Follow me.”
They arrive at large double doors minutes later.
“Wow! Bigger white doors!” Nicky grins. They open the doors and are stunned.
The three kids stare at rows of thousands of clones, all of them immersed in see-through basins full of a blue, gelatinous-like substance.
“Man, this is so weird. It’s like a bunch of us sleeping naked in Jell-O,” Nicky observes.
“Remember guys … they‘ll be used to enslave us all. We have to do this!” Isa reminds them.
A clone enters the room. He is wearing what looks like a clear, plastic suit over his dark, blue coveralls. The same coveralls they are all wearing. “Why are you not in ‘decam’?” he asks.
“Uh … decam? Oh yeah sorry we were just about to …”
“Order of termination for disobedience. Leave now and dispose of yourselves in the termination room.”
“Yeah, okay. We’ll get right on that.” As Willy kicks the clone in the head, he slips on some of the blue, gelatinous liquid that leaked onto the floor from one of the basins. He just grazes him barely knocking him down.
“The traitors are here!” The clone sends this message telepathically to all of the clones near him. “Sense them brethren; they are in the birthing room.”**
“Hurry!” Willy yells, but it’s too late. The giant doors open and dozens of clones start pouring in.
“Oh crap!” Nicky yells. “Wow, that is a lot of sexy … the ones that look like me anyway.”
“Oh, shut up!” Isa yells.
“We have an advantage. We can telepathically link, so we can tell who’s who once the fight starts. They’ll be confused,” Willy says.
Suddenly, a gunshot is fired. They all hear the bang. Isa is hit in the leg. She doesn’t even realize it. Just like the body attacks a foreign bacteria or virus, her body almost instantaneously heals itself and dissolves the bullet.
Isa looks down, «I think I was shot! But I don’t feel anything! I was shot. There’s a hole in my coverall. Whatever the Chreé did to us seems to be working.»
More shots are fired, but now
the three are expecting them. The three kids begin to concentrate on the warrior and animal spirits that are now a part of them. Willy runs towards them slashing and biting anyone near him. Nicky starts killing any clone in his path.
After a few minutes of battling, Isa kills the last few with her bow and arrow.
«That was too easy. Hurry before more clones get here!» Isa yells. Using her manifested bow and arrow, she quickly starts destroying the alien machines around them. Her arrows travel faster than bullets.
The Plexiglas like machines around the perimeter and many of the basins are on fire, explosions erupt everywhere. Technology developed over hundreds of years is destroyed in seconds.
The double doors slide open again.
«More clones! There must be hundreds of them!» Willy shouts.
The battle is fierce, bloody, and chaotic. It is close quarter fighting. Wave after wave of clones pour in. Bodies lie everywhere in pools of blood. Sounds of screams, grunts, bone crunching, and the unmistakable and disturbing thuds of bodies impacting the walls and floor are deafening. The reverberations can be heard throughout the miles of corridors.
«There are only about ten left near the entrance!» Isa yells with as much energy as she could muster.
Nicky limps up to them. Using his sonic weapon, he growls and blows them back towards the wall. All of them fall unconscious.
An eerie silence surrounds the beaten warriors. Thousands of clones now lay motionless in this enormous room. It is a gory scene. Isa, Willy, and Nicky are bloody and badly injured. Their bodies are almost overwhelmed by all of their injuries.
“We have to get out now!” Willy yells through the pain.
They try to run out quickly, but their wounds prevent their bodies from healing as they normally would. Exhausted, they began to slowly head towards the exit.
More clones wait at the exit.
Isa sees them first. “Oh no,” she sighs.
They can see and hear the blue pulses of energy exploding outside. Clones are being struck and killed.
“Where’s that coming from?” Nicky asks.
The ship that had brought them there was now trying to protect them. They battle what was left of the clones to escape. Willy takes the worst of it. Finally they are able to limp over to the ship and enter it. They fly away, all badly injured, but still alive. Nicky tries to reassure Willy just before he passes out, “You’ll pull through, don’t worry you’ll pull through buddy.” Nicky yells to the vehicle, “Get us to help!”
The vehicle replies, “Chlezéon has been contacted.”
“Come on Willy …” Nicky pleads. But he and Isa are so badly injured themselves, they could hardly be of any help.
Chapter 42 - Healing
“He’ll make it. He has to,” Isa says.
“I know he will …” But Nicky isn’t really sure if he will. Nicky does something he never really does. He closes his eyes and prays.
The vehicle takes them back to the church. Z is waiting.
They limp into the church with Isa carrying Willy over her shoulder.
“Put him down here,” Z motions to them. “Do not despair. His body has shut down to heal. Even with the gravest of injuries, it is possible for you three to heal. Your capacity to heal surpasses even our own,” Z reassures Isa and Nicky just before he leaves the church.
It was a long, painful night in the church, but by morning all three have completely healed.
Isa is the first to wake up. “We did it!” Isa celebrates with her hands up in the air.
“Yeah, we did it,” Nicky wipes his tired eyes.
The two look at Willy still lying in a pew. “Hey, I’m fine you wimps …” Willy laughs.
“Come here tough guy,” Nicky motions to Willy.
The three battle-worn kids hug.
“You know, those clones were probably more powerful than any army on earth, and we beat them! At least they can’t clone for a long, long time,” Willy says.
“How many more do you suppose are left?” Nicky asks.
“Who knows? Thousands probably, and the Chreé are not going to be happy after what we did,” Willy says.
“Yeah, but for today, let’s just celebrate,” Isa says.
Out of the blue, a cell phone left behind in the church rings. “Hello?” Willy answers. “Thank you, Z … what? There’s another one. But we barely survived. Okay, I understand, thanks.” Willy slowly hangs up.
“There’s another facility!?” Nicky exclaims.
“Yeah there’s another one. It’s in the Arizona desert,” Willy replies.
“But I thought …” Nicky starts to say.
Willy interrupts screaming, “We all thought!”
Willy and Nicky glare at each other.
“Relax guys,” Isa stands in between them. “We never give up and I don’t think the Apache spirits in us would let us quit anyway. Let’s get in as much training as we can before we go see our sweet brothers and sisters, Okay?”
“I’m sorry,” Willy apologies to Nicky.
“Don’t worry about it, let’s just focus on the next mission. Let’s just hope it’s easier than the last one.”
Chapter 43 - Again
Back at the safe house, four days have passed since they received Z’s last call. Stuck in the house they are growing bored of doing the same things day after day.
“Good morning boys,” Isa says with a smile as she walks into the kitchen.
“Somebody forgot to buy the salmon. What am I going to eat?” Nicky says rifling through the refrigerator.
“Hey, I’ve got wheatgrass,” Isa smiles.
“Bleh … I’ll leave the wheatgrass to the horse,” Nicky replies. They all laugh.
After breakfast and a long, boring day, the call they have been fretting finally comes in.
Willy answers, “Yeah, we’re ready. Thanks for everything Z. We’ll try our best.”
“Ready guys? The vehicle is preprogrammed. Let’s go,” Willy tells them.
They enter the vehicle. It backs out and transforms under the cover of night and takes off.
“Z told me that three large rocks surround the entrance. When we approach, the door will open like before. They’ll be expecting us, so the Watchers are on high alert. Z warned me that they’ve changed tactics. They can’t sense us, but they can sense each other. So, if we’re close enough they’ll know we’re not one of them,” Willy says.
“Damn, this will be harder than before,” Nicky says.
“Yeah, but we know what to expect now. Plus we’re tougher than the first time; obviously our skills increase the more we use them, but somehow I feel more powerful now,” Isa tells them.
“It’s true. It’s as if the more we are connecting to the spirits, it is somehow making us more powerful,” Nicky says.
“I feel it too! Well, were going to need it. I’m sure the Chreé will throw everything they got at us,” Willy states.
They quietly land many miles away. It is pitch dark … for normal humans anyway.
“You guys see the rocks?” Nicky asks.
“Yeah we see them,” Isa replies.
They adapt and carefully begin their trek.
“You guys suppose our essence goes somewhere when we die?” Nicky asks while they travel.
“We won’t find out today,” Willy reassuringly responds.
“Yeah, we got each other’s backs. What can go wrong?” Nicky looks at Isa and Willy, then smiles.
“Always brother,” Willy says.
“And don’t forget the sister, too,” Isa smiles.
They arrive at the rocks. A hidden door lifts from the desert floor.
“Between my hearing, your smell, and Isa’s telepathy, it should be easy to find the cloning room again,” Willy tells them.
“The only problem will be getting out,” Nicky says.
This facility is longer, but has the same basic layout with the obligatory white walls. Even the clones’ enhanced eyes haven’t spotted their adapted bod
ies. They search until Isa senses the cloning room.
“I think I know where it is.” Isa leads them to a massive double door. Right above the door is the same glowing green light from the last facility. “This must be it,” Isa says.
When the double doors open, they are amazed … again.
“Whoa! There are a lot more basins here,” Nicky says looking up in disbelief.
They freeze for a second at the sheer magnitude of the room. It’s similar to the last creation room, except there are thousands of basins stacked horizontally and vertically. They are stacked about fifty feet high, and each basin is dripping the gelatinous blue fluid to the basin below it. The three can only guess how many they’re looking at.
“Looks like they learned how to make better use of the space,” Nicky points out.
“We still haven’t been spotted. We need to destroy this place as quickly as possible and get out with minimal engagements,” Willy suggests.
“Yeah, like Agent 47 in Hitman,” Nicky interrupts.
“I need you to focus, Nicky. Okay guys, first we destroy the machines around the perimeter, second those crystals above the basins, and finally the basins where the clones are created. We have to move fast and stay hidden as long as we can,” Willy tells them.
The three move so fast that the human eye would have difficulty seeing anything but a blue blur. After the first explosion, the ear piercing screams of the Watchers begin.
Once all of the alien machines are destroyed, they focus their attack on several massive blue crystals situated approximately a hundred feet high above the basins. As the room fills with smoke, clones begin to enter.
«Hide!» Willy says telepathically. They start climbing the basins reaching the crystals 100 feet in the air. They adapt their bodies perfectly, blending with the crystals high above.
«Nicky, take the center rows, I’ll take the left, and Isa take the right,» Willy instructs them.
They jump down and land as quietly as possible. They begin to sprint, shattering basins as they speed past, and in the process, running through clones. Destroying the bottom rows begins a chain reaction. Basins start collapsing on each other. The clones begin to attack. They cannot fight and remain adapted; they are now exposed.
Essence: The E.S.T. Org. Page 9
