The Radius | Book 2 | Living In The Radius

by Muga, D. M.

  Ben’s Uncle then gestures to the people along the shoreline.

  “The truth is out there, Abraham. In fact! You are the one that filmed this whole damn thing for the entire town to see. And if I know people… there are a few out there that are recording this right now and uploading it to the SuperNet for the rest of our kind to see. Since you so kindly opened back up our communications to get your message out to us. Your arrogance has bested you, Abraham. And it will be your downfall. Mark my words...” Uncle Steven says, and points out to Abraham.

  This gets a confused look from Abraham and then his head is spinning, looking at the thousands of people that are still on the shore of Lake Gregory. After a moment, he then focuses directly on Steven.

  Oh shit… he’s really pissed off now. Watch out Uncle. Ben thinks as he sights in on Abraham, specifically his rising MECCU.

  “So be it! You want to act like children, you’ll be treated as such! This complicates things, but we are still superior to your kind in every way! Now it’s time to prove that!” Abraham shouts.

  “Kill them all!” Abraham shouts.

  “Oh shit… shit just got real!” Ben blurts out.

  “This guy is literally insane!” Eileen adds.

  Ben is surprised when he doesn't see blue orbs flying away from the cannons the very next second. On the other hand, he’s overjoyed that their pause in following orders granted his Uncle enough time to tap his MECCU and bring up his AE. The Federalists must be confused from the order or are just shocked to see their leader out of his mind and irate.

  “Quick! Get behind the force field and get to the STARU! I’ll hold them back!” Uncle Steven yells at Alexander and the others on the platform with him.

  “The what?!” Alexander questions.

  “I said kill them all! This settlement is lost! Nothing but mindless barbarians! Kill them all now!” Abraham shouts as a blue orb leaves his own IMD and bounces off of Uncle Steven’s AE, sending a radiant blue wave all around it.

  Angry at not killing his Uncle, Abraham shifts his aim toward one of the people on the platform that was not behind the AE yet. A blue orb hits the man directly and he goes limp, falling into the lake.

  “Get in the damn spaceship, Alexander! Now!” Uncle Steven yells again.

  Alexander doesn’t question this time. Instead he picks up a girl under each of his arms and runs up the small bridge and into the STARU. Another person outside of his Uncle’s AE falls to another blue orb coming from Abraham’s IMD.

  At that moment, several blasts from the STARUs hit the platform where his Uncle is standing. Three more people go limp, with one falling into the lake and the other two falling atop of the platform. The other four people must have made it inside of the STARU, because Ben cannot see them when the blue waves disperse. What he does see is his Uncle down on one knee and his AE riddled with bright yellow cracks.

  “Nooo!!! Uncle!” Ben shouts as he opens fire on Abraham with Uncle’s .308.

  Eileen opens up fire next to him without any words.

  ::Crack::

  ::Crack::Crack::Crack::

  ::Crack::Crack::Crack::

  The rounds hitting Abraham’s platform get his and the other Federalist’s attention. Ben can see Abraham smirk and then the other Federalists start firing in their direction, with blue orbs hitting all around them and radiant blue waves going over their own AEs.

  Ben sights back in on Abraham’s MECCU, with his IMD now solely focused on his Uncle.

  Hang in there, Uncle!

  ::Crack::

  Ben starts to see bright yellow cracks where he is trying to hit the same place over and over again, aiming for Abraham’s right arm.

  ::Crack::

  ::Crack::Crack::Crack::

  ::Crack::Crack::Crack::

  ::Crack::

  A bright yellow crack forms in his field of vision, to his left. He then quickly looks over at Eileen, to see several bright yellow cracks forming on her AE as well.

  Shit! We’re running out of time!

  Ben then hears gunfire erupt to his left from the parking lot for the trail head. He then sees muzzle flashes come from the other side of the lake, the boating ramp parking lot northwest of them hitting the shields on the STARUs above them. Some of the Federalists that were shooting at them shifted aim to the crowds in the different parking lots.

  “Looks like the people of Crestline finally caught on!” Eileen yells over at him.

  Ben watches in terror as several of the STARUs shift aim toward the people in the parking lots. The people panic and many of them fall to the ground, after a blue dozer orb impacts them, sending out flashes and waves of radiant blue over the people in the parking lots.

  “Oh no!” Eileen shouts. “Those poor people!”

  After a few seconds, Ben forces himself to tear his eyes away from the frightful scene of sleeping people in the parking lots, with the survivors running for their lives.

  Stay focused, Ben! Focus… What about Uncle?! How are you holding up, Uncle?

  Ben looks through his scope at his Uncle and doesn’t see him, but rather a bright yellow wall that is his failing AE. His Uncle’s AE force field is within seconds of collapsing, leaving him open to the dozer attackers and ending his life. Ben’s mind is racing with fear and anxiety.

  His Uncle may not have been his father, but Steven Reilly had always looked out for him over the years. What is more, he had been there for them, Ben, Eileen, Alexander, and now Mia and Isabelle, through all of this chaos from the Blue Hole Radius. Ben had thought about it many times. Aside from his own folks, he couldn’t think of a better person on this Earth. He was smart, strong, honorable, compassionate, and always figured things out. The dreadful thought crosses Ben’s mind.

  Did he know?! Is that why this was his plan?! To give the sadistic maniac a target and distract him?!

  Ben’s mind races further. You planned this! Didn’t you?! You knew that if you could get Abraham off his game and show his true colors that he would drop his guard and lose his shit. Was dying part of your plan Uncle!?

  Ben tries to shake the thought of his Uncle dying from his head.

  Dammit! No! Not today!

  He sights back in on Abraham’s MECCU.

  ::Crack::

  He expels the spent brass and loads another into the chamber, slamming the bolt home.

  ::Crack::

  Ben watches as a small whole is newly formed, giving Ben the ability to shoot Abraham’s MECCU. The hole is close to the size of a basketball but should hopefully be all he needs to hit his mark.

  “Yes!” Ben exclaims. “Finally!”

  He expels the spent brass and sends the bolt back home

  ::Click::

  Shit! Shit! Shit! Not now!

  Ben fumbles for another ten-round magazine for the .308 bolt-action rifle. After what feels like an hour, he’s able to release the empty magazine and insert the full one, pushing the bolt home and a round into the chamber.

  He sights in on Abraham’s MECCU as a blue orb is forming out of the end of the IMD. The blue orb releases and he fires.

  He sees the MECCU shatter and blood splatter on Abraham’s arm. Looking through the scope, he can see a screaming Abraham holding what was left of his right arm. He quickly shifts his focus over to his Uncle.

  “NOOOOO!” Ben yells out! “Uncle!”

  Ben looks in horror as his Uncle is lying face down on the platform, along with several others of the fallen townspeople on the platform.

  “Maybe he just collapsed?! Maybe he’s okay?!” Ben blurts out.

  “What?! What’s happening?!” Eileen yells out at him.

  To thwart any hopes that Ben still had, several blasts from the STARUs in the sky release the larger blue orbs from their cannons, with each of them hitting the platform where Steven Reilly is. The platform is covered in a blue flash, followed by the disbursement of blue waves all over his Uncle.

  “You son of a fucking bitch! You piece of fucking shit! I'm going to
fucking kill you, Abraham!” Ben yells as he stands up and sights back in on Abraham.

  Sighting in on him, he sees that he’s still holding his arm. Moreover, he notices that Abraham’s now missing his right hand.

  “Good, motherfucker! I hope that fucking hurts!” Ben yells, as though he can hear him.

  Ben’s slightly stunned and thinks he can actually hear him, because he stopped screaming about his arm and his focus is pointed in his direction.

  ::Crack::

  Ben puts a round right where Abraham’s face is, producing a bright yellow crack in his AE.

  ::Crack::Crack::Crack::

  Eileen empties her magazine and goes to reload another thirty-round magazine into her rifle.

  The mixed smells of dirt, carbon, sweat, and trees fill his nose as he hears movement come from the Leviathan.

  Ben then pauses as he sees even larger cannons protrude from the Leviathan, with massive blue dozer orbs forming at the end of the CSDs. These dozer orbs are the size of SUVs and small trucks.

  After a quick, dreadful thought of the cannons being faced toward himself and Eileen, he looks at Eileen with wide eyes. Unable to produce words, he looks back to the Leviathan as the blue dozer orbs are released from the cannons.

  Is this it? Is this really the end this time? How can we win against those kinds of weapons? Dammit! There has to be a way to beat these assholes! Abraham must pay!

  Ben’s shockingly amazed as he watches the blue orbs hit the STARUs in the air, and not hit them or the other people on the ground.

  What’s happening, right now?! Seriously, what the shit!?

  “They did it! They took control of the Leviathan! Ben! They did it!” Eileen exclaims.

  With the realization of what Eileen says hitting him. He looks back to the platform where his unmoving Uncle’s body lay, alongside several others on the platform. Still unable to produce words, Ben raises his rifle back up and sights in on Abraham, with only one thought now on his mind.

  Kill

  ::Crack::

  The bright yellow crack spreads.

  Ben expels the spent brass and chambers another round in his Uncle’s .308, staying sighted in on Abraham’s head. He can see his eyes, which are a bright blue color... just like his. The look on his face is a mixture of pain, anger, and confusion. It looks like Abraham’s staring directly at Ben and his rifle.

  Ben still only has one thought on his mind…

  Kill

  ::Crack::

  Ben’s view is obstructed by something and he pulls his eye away from the scope after that last shot. He’s angered to see a STARU blocking his field of vision of Abraham.

  “AHHHHH! Get out of the way! You fucking flying freight car!” Ben yells at the STARU.

  A few seconds later, the STARU seemed to oblige his request and takes off, heading west toward the valley. Ben sights back in to find the platform empty... no Federalists on it and certainly no Abraham. Ben’s eyes go wide in disbelief.

  “AHHHHHHH! You get back here and face me you fucking coward!” Ben yells as he takes aim at the fleeing STARU.

  ::Crack::

  ::Crack::Crack::Crack::

  ::Crack::

  His and Eileen’s rounds keep on going, not knowing if they are hitting the escaping STARU with Abraham Jackson on it due to its speed. Ben watches in a fueled rage as the other STARUs follow the one with Abraham on it.

  “Abraham!!!!!” Ben yells out.

  Ben looks over to where the STARUs just were... now somewhere else in the Blue Hole Radius or the rest of the world. He then looks back to the parking lot to his left. He can see the asphalt riddled with sleeping bodies... not actually sleeping, but all dead. He looks across the lake to the other parking lot and sees the same scene of bodies on the ground in awkward positions of sleep, never to awake again.

  “Ben, they are gone!” Eileen shouts out at him. “Snap out of it! We have to go check on the others. They could be hurt!”

  Ben turns to Eileen with wild eyes of hurt, pain, and rage. Before he can respond, something grabs his attention from above the Leviathan. It’s another massive spaceship, looking to be the same size as the Leviathan.

  “Oh! What the hell! What the crap is this shit now!” Ben yells out at the massive spacecraft above the Leviathan.

  “Really! Can’t we catch a damn break! What now?!” Eileen yells out, alongside him.

  A loud voice comes out from the gigantic spacecraft, “This is Commander Yang, aboard the Galileo! Captain Jackson, you are to surrender immediately or be fired upon and destroyed! Cease and desist or have your entire Federalist force perish!”

  “Yeah! It’s a little late for that! Those assholes already got away! Thanks for showing up late to the fight!” Ben yells out at the interstellar spacecraft known as the Galileo.

  Ben then looks back to the fallen figure of his Uncle Steven Reilly. With his Uncle’s .308 rifle now in his right hand, he grips the shoulder stock intensely, making his hand hurt. He disregards the pain and he looks at the lifeless platform, and then off into the distance... where Abraham and the other Federalist had fled. He looks back to the figure of his Uncle, an unmoving figure.

  “AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” He yells into the sky, and Eileen is at a loss for words to console his grief and loss.

  Ben’s vision goes bright white, and he feels like he’s in the clouds. An instant later he feels like he comes crashing down, hitting something hard. Pain sears through his entire body. He tries to look around, but realizes that his eyes are closed with his eyelids feeling ridiculously heavy.

  “Ugh… Ow... What the crap happened?” Ben moans.

  “Ben!? Oh, thank goodness!” A woman’s voice says from next to him.

  He forces his heavy eyelids open, revealing a much blurrier vision of the beautiful woman from his dream with the bright green eyes. He blinks several more times and his vision focuses a little better.

  “What happened?… Where am I?” Ben says groggily.

  “Why do I feel like I was hit by a truck?” He adds.

  He feels as though he cannot move his limbs, and his mind is still very foggy. Half of his mind still thinking he’s standing along the shore of Lake Gregory.

  “Oh my gosh, Ben! I’m here! It’s me, Eileen. You are safe on the Leviathan…” The woman says, and starts to sob again.

  “It’s been four days! You have been asleep for four days, since the surgeries. I'm so happy you’re awake!” She adds.

  Eileen? Four Days? Surgeries? The Leviathan? AHHHHHH!

  A searing pain surges through his head and it feels as though his head is on fire and being frozen at the same time.

  “AHHHHHHHH!” He screams out in pain.

  “Oh No! Alicia! Alexander! Someone get in here!” The woman shouts.

  The pain continues in his head and it feels as though it’s now coursing through his body.

  “What happened?!” Another woman’s voice says.

  “I don’t know! He started waking up and then he started screaming! He’s in pain! Please do something!” The woman with the green eyes next to him says.

  “AHHHHHHHH!” He screams out in pain once again.

  He then feels an ice-cold pinch in his arm which spreads through his entire body. The pain swiftly recedes, and his mind goes foggy again.

  The other woman speaks again, sounding like she’s on his other side, opposite of the green-eyed woman. “We’ve never done the procedures on a person of this age before, Eileen. At least not since the colonization of E2… It was successful, but it may take more time for his body to adjust to the…”

  23

  Leslie Yang

  Leslie Yang looks over the world of her ancestors from the control deck of the Galileo interstellar spacecraft. She stands next to her father, Commander Thomas Yang, and several other survivors from E2. She looks over Earth One, or E1, with amazement. It’s slightly smaller than her home planet, but it looks so pure and pristine to her.

  The Galileo has th
e viewpoint of looking down onto the North American continent and the Arctic, as well as a good amount of the South American continent.

  She can see that the Arctic and the northern half of North America is covered in white, being covered in ice and snow. She can see that South America looks to be lush and green, but North America doesn’t look exactly as she recalls from her memory bank of pictures of Earth One. Most of the eastern side of the continent appears to be under water now. What was once known as the Floridian Peninsula is now completely covered by the Atlantic Ocean.

  What is more, she notices that an extensive desert region now exists, encompassing a majority of the eastern coastal region and of what’s left of the eastern continent. The landmass connecting the two continents, Central America, is just as lush and green as South America.

  Their destination, the Blue Hole Radius, is surrounded by what appear to be mountain ridges and more green and lush areas. The monitors indicate that there are forests that run from the Blue Hole Radius, all the way down to Central America.

  I wonder if there are still ancient structures from their time. I wonder if any of the seven wonders that we learned of are still intact.

  “Take the Galileo in closer, Lieutenant Willis. Ensure that we are not observable through the Leviathan's radar systems. The element of surprise is essential to our survival.” Her father says calmly.

  “Right, Sir. Will do.” Lieutenant Willis replies.

  Leslie looks over to her father. Seeing that he’s remaining stoic and calm in these times amazes her. Nonetheless, she knows that there’s a deep seed of hatred and rage beneath that calm exterior. She knows this because she feels it too... for her younger brother, for her mother, and everyone else that was lost on E2 two months ago.

  “We may be incredibly outnumbered, but we still have the element of surprise on our side.” He says as he turns to look at her.