The Infinity Affliction

by Evan Currie

  More easily, there was lettering she could make out.

  What the hell is the Allied Realms and what are they doing throwing their shit in my Glades? Sandra wondered, irritated.

  The twenty – six – year - old doctorate student had grown up in South Florida, spent more time in the Glades as a teen than she had trying to sneak into bars… which amounted to one hell of a lot of time, if she were honest with herself.

  She felt more than a little proprietary about the fragile ecosystem she had called home for her entire life, and while she figured this was certainly an unintentional landing… well, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to give whoever was behind it all holy hell.

  She sighed as her airboat gently thudded against the side of the object, and stepped down from the high seat, pulling the Winchester lever action 30-06 from its place by her side as well as her hand radio as she did.

  “Hey Joe, Sandra here. Come back, will you?” She said, walking over to the side of the boat with the radio in her left hand and the rifle resting against her right shoulder as she got close enough to feel heat pouring off the object.

  Nothing but a static squeal answered her, making her wince before trying again.

  “Joe. Sandra here. I’ve got a situation, come on back.”

  More static greeted her, and Sandra grumbled as she hooked the radio on her belt and started looking around the object a little closer.

  It was a hexagonal construct, looked rather like an eight - sided die for Dungeons and Dragons actually. She’d never seen anything built quite like it but was even more surprised to find something that looked almost like a hatch on the top face of it.

  “No way someone is inside this thing, right?” She asked herself, eyes wide at the implication.

  She didn’t think anything could have survived a landing like that, if one could call it a landing. She hoped there wasn’t some poor soul dead or, worse, dying in there. She was an environmental science PHD candidate, not a medical doctor.

  Still, Sandra planted a boot on the object and ignored the sizzle for a moment as she leaned in and slammed the stock of her rifle into what looked like a hatch.

  “Hey!” She yelled, “There anyone in there?”

  With no answer forthcoming, Sandra felt rather like an idiot, but for all that she repeated her actions. Better to be a fool than see someone die because she was too uptight to look a little silly.

  She almost jumped out of her skin, and her boat, when the object hissed, and the hatch cracked open. Sandra reflexively brought her Winchester to her shoulder as the metal groaned and cracked before starting to grind and open with almost painful slowness.

  *****

  Ben groaned as a thudding in his ears echoed the one in his head.

  He painfully opened his eyes, then tried opening them again before realizing that they already were open. It was black around him, no hint of light he could see until he looked up to see the luminescent paint that marked the emergency hatch release.

  Oh, that sucked, He thought as he weakly pulled at his straps and got himself unhooked from the shock absorbing seat that was now crumpled and flat to the floor of the pod.

  Standing up, Ben stretched a little for a moment before a thudding sound made him look up and realize that he hadn’t imagined the sound in the first place.

  “Oh boy. This should be fun,” He sighed, grabbing his sidearm and belting it on before he reached for the emergency release and pulled.

  Metal clanked, air hissed, and light suddenly streamed in to blind him with the suddenness of it.

  Ben swore in Mandarin and English for several moments before shifting his arm away from his eyes and blinking in the light. The hatch had opened on command, leaving him staring out at a shocked looking woman staring back at him with an antique rifle pointed right between his eyes.

  Ben groaned.

  Florida. I just had to land in Florida. Ben grumbled to himself, Next time, I aim for Canada.

  *****

  Sandra stared over the iron sights of her rifle, not even really realizing that she’d leveled the weapon at the man whose head had emerged from the object. The rifle was a gift from her dad once she’d started spending time in the Glades on her own, ostensibly for warding off gators but in reality she’d gotten more use out of it once she put herself firmly on the bad side of the local Poachers.

  Right now, though, she was more perplexed by the man she was looking at than in any way worried or afraid.

  He was a big guy, she noted absently. Built like the proverbial brick wall and wearing what looked like combat fatigues but the material looked odd to her. It seemed smoother than it should be, with a diffuse sheen along the grey and smoke patterns that reminded her of camo.

  The man himself was of Asian descent, though probably mixed she decided as she got a closer look, hard angular drawing out his features set into a squared off face and jaw.

  “You ok?” She blurted out after the shocked silence had drawn out through several interminable seconds.

  “I’d be better if I didn’t have a weapon in my face,” He told her in clear, nearly unaccented English, tossing a pointed look to the barrel of her Winchester.

  “Oh, shit, sorry,” Sandra said, easing the weapon back and shifting the business end up. “You scared the piss out of me.”

  “Yes well, I do apologize,” He told her, “If it’s any consolation, you gave me a fair start yourself.”

  She snorted, “I’ll bet.”

  Sandra paused, then glanced up into the clear blue morning sky, then back at the object. “I’ve got to ask…”

  “Don’t,” He said, sighing as he pulled himself up out of the object. “Trust me, you don’t really want to know. How far are we from… civilization?”

  The way he pronounced that last word caught Sandra’s attention, like he was using the word ironically. She didn’t comment though.

  “That would depend on what you call civilization,” she said finally. “This is Dade county, technically, but we’re hours out of Miami. The Ninety is about forty - five minutes North of here. Few small towns and the like, mostly barely qualify as villages, within an hour or so.”

  He was about to respond when he paused and looked around, like he’d heard something. Sandra frowned as she realized she could hear it too, a distant thumping sound that had a steady beat to it. She pivoted and looked around until she spotted a dot growing in the distance.

  “I’m guessing that’s your ride,” She said, turning back as he had vanished back into the object.

  “Not really,” He said from within, odd sounds punctuating his actions, “However, I’ll bet they think otherwise.”

  “Excuse me?” Sandra asked, her attention split between the weird guy who fell from the sky and the approaching chopper that looked a lot bigger than any she’d seen in recent memory.

  He didn’t respond, so she frowned and leaned in closer so she could see inside the thing. The guy was tossing stuff into a rugged looking pack, basically stripping everything that wasn’t bolted to the walls, floor, or ceiling from what she could tell.

  The loud rhythmic beat of the chopper grew louder as he worked, and before she had time to think about it the big helicopter was slowing and slowly orbiting around their position. She wondered what it was waiting for, but that was answered quickly enough as another pair of choppers shocked her by appearing out of practically nowhere, apparently having used the first to hide the sound of their approach.

  These were smaller, armed, and somehow managed to look pissed, which was frankly terrifying since all she had was a beat - up old Winchester and her airboat.

  “Uh, could you come out here and talk to these guys?” She called over her shoulder.

  The guy climbed up and out of the object, taking a seat on the open hatch, and waved to the trio of helicopters.

  “Just do what they say,” He told her, “I doubt they care much about you.”

  “Damn well hope not,” Sandra muttered as the big one slowl
y eased in and settled into a low hover over the pair of them.

  The wind beat down on them as the door in the side of the chopper opened up and a camo fatigued guy appeared, aiming a rifle down at them.

  “Don’t move!” He yelled over the roar of the rotors, “Stay where you are! You with the rifle, set it down slowly!”

  Sandra rolled her eyes, as she carefully set her rifle down and raised her hands. “Where the hell am I supposed to go? For a swim?”

  “Just a tip, lady,” The guy behind her said in a surprisingly calm voice as he too raised his hands, “But it’s not generally a good idea to be a smart mouth until you’ve ascertained for sure that the guy holding the gun has a sense of humor.”

  She was about to make an acerbic comment about that, but a flash of light that eclipsed the sun itself took her by surprise as she yelled and covered her eyes with her arms.

  “What the hell…”

  She heard the guy speak, then start shifting around as she blinked away the spots in her eyes. Her vision cleared enough for her to see him standing high on the object, looking up into the sky, just as he started swearing in a language she didn’t understand.

  She literally had no idea what he was saying, but she would swear on her soul that he was cussing up a storm. Sandra knew what that sounded like in any language.

  He spun around waving his hands at the choppers.

  “Incoming!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, pointing, “Incoming! Ground zero! Put those birds in the water!”

  Sandra twisted around, looking up at the choppers and into the sky. “What’s going on?”

  She could see an oddly shaped cloud, that had to be reflected some of the early morning sun to be glowing that color red, but nothing else. The glades seemed pretty quiet, aside from the helicopter rotors of course.

  He was still yelling and waving, but no one seemed to be reacting the way he wanted. Sandra was entirely unprepared when he let out another curse she didn’t understand, then lunged at her.

  “Hey!” She managed to get out one word as he plucked her smoothly off her feet and dragged her headfirst through the hatch of the thing he’d landed in. “Get your hands off me!”

  “Lady, trust me, you want to be in here,” He growled, tossing her to the floor unceremoniously as he slapped a control on the wall and the hatch snapped shut. “Hold on to something, it’s about to get rough.”

  Sandra opened her mouth to say something but the words didn’t come out, or if they did she couldn’t remember them even as she said them because suddenly it felt like the hand of God himself had just slapped them, sending the whole damn world tumbling.

  *****

  Stark adjusted the collective and pumped the foot pedals as he orbited the airboat and what looked like some bizarre modern art installation. There were two figures below, a woman with an old rifle and a man in combat fatigues. Neither seemed too excited about the presence of the CH-53 or the two accompanying Super Cobras that were flying escort.

  Once the Cobras setup on overwatch, Stark brought his Super Stallion down closer and gave the marines behind him the signal. He barely paid attention as they yelled orders and basically got ready to drop onto the airboat and object. Stark was more concerned with keeping an eye out for any sign of trouble that might take down his bird rather than the sort of trouble that might shoot a marine dead.

  That was partly why he happened to be looking up when the flash lit up the sky. If not for his tinted helmet visor, he knew he’d be blind. As it was, he was seeing spots and missed the excitement below when it started.

  It was when one of the Marines asked over the comm, “Clear to fire, LT?”, that he paid closer attention.

  The man was waving his hands and yelling something wildly, but Stark couldn’t hear any of it plugged into the Helo as he was.

  “What’s he saying?” Stark asked over the comm. “He seems awfully excited about something.”

  “He says ‘incoming’, Iron Man!” The Corporal at the door told him, “And something else about the water, I think he’s telling us to land??”

  “In the swamp?” A Marine in the back grunted, “Fuck him.”

  “Incoming?” Stark’s eyes looked up, and he found himself staring at a glowing red cloud. He’d written it off a moment earlier as just being reflected morning light, but the sun seemed awfully high for that.

  His eyes widened as he suddenly had a bad thought on just what that cloud might actually be.

  “Buckle in!” He screamed over the comm, putting full power to the Super Stallion’s engine as he pulled back and away from the object. “This is Marine 424 Helo, Iron Man at the stick. NUCFLASH! NUCFLASH! NUCFLASH!”

  Stark could feel his incredulous gaze of his copilot but ignored it in favor of trying to decide whether to climb for the sky, or put the nose of his bird in the water.

  The radio exploded into a verbal riot for several seconds before one voice broke in, clear and loud.

  “This is Brigadier Kelsey. NUCFLASH confirmed. Shut up and move your butts!”

  With that the radio went dead as Stark and the pilots of the two Super Cobras gunned it South, hoping they’d picked the right direction.

  “Shouldn’t we be climbing?” Beach asked beside him, looking like he was about to snap he was so stiff.

  “If that thing is nuclear, we might survive the blast, but this filly’s avionics won’t,” Stark said grimly.

  “If? You just called a NUCFLASH warning, boss, you better be right or it’s your ass!”

  “I called NUCFLASH because we don’t HAVE a codeword for there’s a fucking meteor about to slam down on our position!”

  “What!?”

  Stark didn’t have time to answer as he felt it.

  It was as though the air had gone quiet, nothing he could put his finger on. The Super Stallion just suddenly handled different. Not even bad, but he knew that was about to change.

  “Pucker up, Marines!” He called over the Comm. “We’re going down!”

  Stark knew he couldn’t take the sort of force he was expecting in the tail rotor, or the side, it would send the Helo spiraling and kill every single person on board. So, he stepped on the rudder, twisting the Super Stallion into as tight a spin as he could and dropped altitude as fast as possible.

  “Sorry Beach,” He managed to get out as he put the nose of the Helo right into the wall of water and debris that was flying right at them.

  He didn’t know if his co-pilot and friend had heard him, but it was too late anyway. The wall of screaming wind and debris hit the Super Stallion front on just as he put her belly in the swamp, blowing the cockpit glass in on them.

  *****

  Chapter 6

  White House Situation Room

  Silence reigned as the echoes of the Marine Brigadier General’s voice confirming a NUCFLASH incident could still almost be heard amongst them.

  It wasn’t NUCFLASH, of course. They all knew that, but no one was going to second guess the Marine helo pilot’s judgement call on that one.

  It was close enough for government work, Strand thought darkly.

  Truthfully, it might even qualify for the term if they didn’t figure out what the hell was going on. China’s military was winding up, granted it was on Strand’s own advice to their leadership, but that had put Russia on alert, and Pakistan was rattling sabers now while India had gone to full alert.

  If they didn’t get a handle on this situation, and do it fast, a nuclear war might just happen… which would make that Helo pilot’s last radio call tragically correct in spirit, if not in the details.

  “Bird coming on site,” A junior aide in the room, that is to say a Lt. Colonel of the Air Force, announced.

  They all turned to the big screen, which lit up with the imagery from the overhead K-series surveillance satellite.

  The impact zone of the object that hit the Glades was in stark contrast to the rest of the lush greens and browns of the area. A near perfect circle of fire and devastati
on, something Strand supposed they would see in San Francisco when the sun rose over the mountains, marked out the area around the impact with absolute clarity.

  “We have containment teams moving now, brown navy boats, marines, and navy helos are on the move,” Admiral Parsons said softly. “We’re also buying and renting every airboat in the area we can get our hands on… by force in some cases. Just so you’re aware, Mr. President. We don’t have that many shallow watercraft, I’m afraid.”

  “Do it.” Strand ordered hoarsely. “I don’t care what conspiracy bullshit they spout about me next. Pay for them with petty cash, vouchers, whatever… doesn’t matter. Just get every moving man you can in there and seal off that site. We have no idea what is going on, there could be any kind of NBC threat in there.”

  “Yes sir,” Parsons’ nodded.

  It was a real concern, though the Admiral doubted it for various reasons. A Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical threat (NBC) probably wouldn’t have been delivered via a kinetic strike of that magnitude. Maybe a dirty bomb could be diffused like that, he wasn’t sure and would have to check with some experts on that, but the sort of heat generated by this kind of impact would burn up most chemical and bio weapons… and a nuclear detonation didn’t need that sort of force behind it.

  The President looked over to the tracking data showing still more of those things that hadn’t, yet, struck.

  This night of hell was not over yet, and it’s connecting day had yet to begin in much of the world.

  Damnit.

  *****

  At hypersonic speed, the passing of the next object to touch down seemed to slice through the ocean air over the Pacific with silent ease. Only after it had gone by did the rolling thunder shake both air and water with ominous power.

  A little over the halfway mark between California and Hawaii the object slammed into the black waters with the force to raise a plume of water over three kilometers high before the shockwave propagated outward.

  Too small to create a mega-tsunami of real significant force, the impact of the object was still more than enough to trigger the Tsunami warning system in Honolulu, the West Coast of the US, and down through South America as cascading waves dozens of meters high began to expand outward from the center point.