Under My Heel

by Michael Anderle

  Eric turned to ask Tom what he meant when his shin hit a chair, “Gott Verdammt!” Eric could hear John ahead of him, chuckling. “Dammit, John. That shit hurts!” A couple of limps later, Eric started walking a little straighter, “Why won’t our phones work?”

  Jeffrey answered, “Because the EMP device just went off.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The four men stepped out of the building, looking both ways.

  Tom said, “Hmmm, building three is just fine. I wonder what could have caused all of this confusion?”

  The four men watched as the two Air Force vehicles came up to them. Good thing they hadn’t been closer, or their vehicles would’ve been knocked out as well.

  Eric muttered under his breath, “Oh shit. The SUV was close to building one. Seems like we will need to get a taxi.” John nodded his head in understanding.

  The song-and-dance was something for John and Eric to watch. Jeffery said they were ‘investors’ who had arrived a little while before, and they were clueless what was going on.

  Jeffrey painted a picture for the Air Force, of how they had just come out. The power was out in both of their buildings and they had been trying to figure out what was going on.

  Everyone turned to look at Tom when he cried out ‘oh shit!’ and took off toward building one. He was immediately commanded to stop by the Air Force. Tom obeyed.

  A few minutes of arguing later, the Air Force understood that Tom had been trying to figure out why all of their devices had all died. He had pretended to realize that the programming in building one was dependent on power. Tom and Jeffrey along with three members from the Air Force all trooped over to Building one to see what was going on.

  Jeffrey had considered whether he should complain to the Air Force officer. State that the Air Force personnel had no authority to follow them. And point out that they obviously had a secure set up. However, he had offered to let the other Air Force officer come over and check up on them at any time. In the end he had decided to act as if the whole episode wasn’t any big deal.

  Tom, was acting like he had just lost his firstborn child. Sure enough, their server room was dead. No air-conditioning, no lights, no noise, no fans, no nothing. It was black as a cave in the room. Jeffrey considered whether or not he should do a very public firing of Tom, on the spot, for allowing such a thing to occur, but decided against it.

  There wasn’t as big of a deal for John to fake. However, he made a big commotion about their SUV being fried. And complained more about having to take a taxi back to the airport. He told the two of them, while the Air Force men listened, how he was going to report such a stupendous screw-up to the boss.

  How, if she didn’t have both of their heads, he would be surprised. As he was giving the two men a very public dressing down, a taxi arrived and so both he and Eric got into the taxi and left.

  As everyone there watched the taxi drive away down the street, Jeffrey commented to no one in particular, “What a pompous ass.”

  The Queen Bitch’s Ship Ad Aeternitatem

  Ashur, Bethany Anne, John and Eric stepped out of TOM’s cabin on his ship and went to the door. Bethany Anne punched in the code, opening the door and finding a surprised Todd on the other side.

  She smiled at the man, “Fancy meeting you here.” She turned to Darrell who was standing next to Todd, “Hey you big lug, everything good here?” Darrell smiled and stepped aside to let everyone off of the space ship.

  TOM, for god’s sake can you settle the computer down a little? The buzzing is annoying as hell…

  I’m not sure what is eating into the computer cycles, Bethany Anne. I’ll deal with it.

  Ashur stayed close to the team. Gabrielle and Scott arrived a few minutes later. Bethany Anne greeted the two of them, “Peace, love and I will kill for some cookies. You don’t have any, do you?”

  Gabrielle blinked at Bethany Anne, not knowing why she was asking for cookies. “Nooo, but I imagine we might find some in the kitchen area, why?”

  “Just a craving. You wanted to talk?”

  Bethany Anne noticed her team, except for Gabrielle, spreading out. “Yes, part of the reason is this craft. Can we go inside?”

  Bethany Anne shrugged and turned back to the ship plugging in the code and the two women stepped back on the ship. The door closed.

  “Ok, what’s up?”

  Gabrielle responded, “First, Stephen has asked me to get with you on moving this ship to a safer location while everyone is gone.”

  Bethany Anne considered her request, “Ok, why? Are we thinking that David has a clue about it, and is secretly stalking this ship and is setting up this trap for that reason?”

  “No, not exactly. We are concerned that he might have people in one of the Navies of one of the countries nearby. If that happens to be the case, they could attack while we are absent. Stephen has told the Captains to not be boarded. That could possibly result in the ships coming under fire. If this ship gets hit here in this compartment, or goes to the bottom with the Ad Aeternitatem it’s going to be a problem.”

  “That’s…. underselling a little bit. I wish we had the base already, then this would be a no brainer.”

  Gabrielle asked, “What about putting it back where you found it?”

  Bethany Anne considered that request.

  Bethany Anne?

  Yes?

  Bethany Anne put up a finger to stop Gabrielle for a second. Then she put the finger to her head to let Gabrielle know she was talking with TOM.

  I can communicate with the ship now, we can move it to lower orbit and leave it cloaked. Nothing is going to disturb it up there.

  What about someone finding it? I’m sure there are a lot of radars and telescopes pointed up in the sky above us.

  One second… Ok, I have a place that even if we leave it unshielded, we have almost no chance of it being found.

  Bethany Anne considered what TOM had just done. Are you connecting to the internet and figuring out this stuff by yourself?

  Not…. Exactly.

  What ‘not exactly’ are you doing?

  Well, since we have a learning product that has the ability to sift through the …

  Oh. My. GOD! Are you using ADAM for your research project?

  Well, you say that as if it was a bad idea.

  BECAUSE IT IS A BAD IDEA! How the hell do you know what is going on with the software? You’ve translated it and stuck it into your own super-computer, for pete’s sake. How is it even accomplishing this feat? I thought you told me that human code and your code wasn’t compatible!

  Well, I told you that no one from earth would have the understanding to do it. I happen to understand both sides pretty well.

  Bethany Anne put her hands to her bowed head. TOM was going to cause her to jump off a building one of these damn days. He was like a little teenager sometimes.

  “Problems with the little guy?” Gabrielle asked softly.

  “Yes! He would drive me to drink if I enjoyed it just a little bit. That is one fucking frustration - no way to get drunk.”

  “Just imagine what would happen with your strength and no inhibitions.”

  “Yeah, ok I see that. However, to answer your question TOM can fly it up and park it next to a satellite. No one is going to get into it up there.”

  “Ok. One is done. Here is number two - the guys want to discuss upgrading.”

  Bethany Anne was confused, “Upgrading what, their body armor?”

  Gabrielle reached over towards Bethany Anne’s head. Bethany Anne frowned and watched the hand suddenly close into a fist as Gabrielle rapped her on her skull sharply two times. “Ow, bitch!” Bethany Anne rubbed where Gabrielle had hit her head. “What the hell was that for?”

  “Because your being as dense as your father.”

  Bethany Anne continued to massage her head. “Consider me corrected.” She reconsidered what Gabrielle had told her. “Oh… Ooohhh.”

  Gabrielle watched the younger woman, “Don
’t tell me that you didn’t think they might ask you? After what you did for John?”

  Bethany Anne started talking while pacing in the hallway. “I needed to save John’s life, and I gave him a bunch of blood to do it. He was pretty messed up and I was pretty new at this whole saving people with blood stuff. The way he has acted towards me since then has me freaked me out a little.”

  “How, he acted towards you?” Gabrielle wasn’t aware that John caused Bethany Anne to feel uncomfortable.

  “Right after that, he decided to become my guard for life. It felt like maybe I, … I don’t know, coerced him with my blood or something?”

  Gabrielle asked, “You wonder if your blood caused him to become your guardian slave?”

  Bethany Anne’s laugh rang through the hallway, “God no! I can’t imagine John being a slave to anyone. But he is so protective of me and all ‘You saved me so I owe you’. I guess I got scared that I changed one of them to a guardian zombie. And, I’ve been concerned that the others might think that I changed their friend at some level.”

  “Some other level? One that they haven’t talked to you about, you mean?”

  Bethany Anne stopped pacing, “Yes. I know externally they seem happy, but what about inside deep?”

  Gabrielle walked up to Bethany Anne and put her hands on both of her shoulders, “Hey, Bethany Anne, they are happy because they believe in you and love you. People follow you, I follow you, because you care about your friends and family so strongly. Strong enough to tell yourself stupid shit like maybe your blood is turning them into zombie followers. Sometimes, my Queen, you are abysmally stupid.” Gabrielle waited for the physical response, but Bethany Anne didn’t say anything.

  Bethany Anne reached up between Gabrielle’s hands and grasped Gabrielle’s head in both of her hands and pulled her forward to gently kiss her forehead. Gabrielle noticed a tear tracking down Bethany Anne’s face when she released her head. “Thank you for that. You have no idea how happy the five of you make me.”

  Gabrielle dropped her arms from Bethany Anne’s shoulders. Bethany Anne turned around and started for the door. “Let’s do this before I start crying.”

  “Can I tell they guys that you..”

  “Haaeeeelllll no!” Gabrielle smiled when Bethany Anne surreptitiously wiped the tear off of her face.

  —

  The Queen Bitch’s guards were all waiting outside of TOM’S ship for Bethany Anne to show up. Gabrielle wouldn’t tell them what was going on. The door to his ship opened, Bethany Anne had stepped out ahead of Gabrielle and said, “Get the guys together, I’ll be right back” and then disappeared.

  It had taken Todd a minute to close his mouth. He wasn’t normally around her when she did stuff like that.

  Some thirty minutes later, the door opened again on the craft and everyone turned to see Bethany Anne smiling, with a backpack in her hands. She welcomed everyone on board and told Todd to go get some rest, she was going to take care of the ship, for now. At the same time, Captain Wagner came walking in to the holding area.

  Noticing the Captain, Bethany Anne handed the backpack to Gabrielle and stepped off the ship. She met Capt. Wagner halfway to the ship and reached out to shake his hand. “Decided to come see her take off this time?”

  Capt. Wagner looked past Bethany Anne’s shoulders to look at the craft, “Yes I have, it draws me like a moth to a flame. Are those engines going to be safe on my ship? There is a rumor that they could take us all out.”

  Bethany Anne looked back at the engines that she had placed against the wall. They weren’t much to look at, but you would think they are the most precious items in the world from the way Marcus treated them.

  “I’m told by both Marcus and TOM that they are safe… enough. I wouldn’t explode something right next to them to test their theories, but so long as we don’t have a catastrophic explosion they won’t be triggered to explode themselves.” She had almost had to club the scientist over his head when he was allowed inside TOM’s engine room.

  It had taken an hour for the engines to be energized. She had left Marcus handling the movement of the little, heavy devices. He would get instructions from TOM on his laptop, move an engine into the right location as instructed and then step back as the machine would close the protective door and then go about compressing the xenon difluoride to over three-point-two million atmospheres. At this point, TOM would open a very small gate to the etheric and the energy potential stored in the engine would finally arrive at equilibrium with the energy pressure from the gate. The engines all had enough power to move the IZTA’s. If they had substantial need for speed, there was sufficient localized energy in the engine. If, however, they weren’t being used hard, they were powered by the engine, but the connection to the etheric would instantly replace the spent energy.

  Rather like a Toyota Prius battery / gas engine model. Marcus had made a distasteful face when that analogy had been introduced.

  “What are your plans?” Captain Wagner faced his boss.

  “When you see the ship turn on the cloaking device, go ahead and open the deck above. You will be able to tell that something is in the air, but you won’t be able to see it. You will be able to tell when I’m out, it won’t take but a few seconds anyway. I’ll bring everyone back to my suites over on the Polaris. Then I will bring your protection back over to your ship.”

  “Give me a ride sometime?” He smiled to Bethany Anne.

  She looked Capt. Wagner straight in the eye, “Capt., I’m not going to just give you a ride, I’m going to build you your own damn spaceship.” She turned around and walked back into Tom’s ship, sensing more than seeing the shock on Capt. Wagner’s face.

  TOM, when we enter the medical bay, take us up.

  How high?

  Enough that the view is beautiful.

  After she closed the doors on the spaceship she had everyone follow her into the medical room. “Gentleman… my bitches, if you please.” The chuckles went around the room. “You are the first humans that looked at the ‘new’ Bethany Anne and saw me not as someone different, but someone you cared about and that you chose to follow. I have probably never expressed how deeply that affected me on our trip to Miami.”

  A tear escaped down her face. Darrell looked over at Scott, surprised. Bethany Anne didn’t cry. “But you guys have had my back ever since Florida. You have taken on jobs that no one else would have thought possible. You have followed me into the pit of darkness and we didn’t stop kicking ass until we climbed on the skulls of our enemies to exit out the other side.” She turned to look at John, “Mr. Grimes, you took a wet behind the ears useless Wechselbalg and turned him into the man he is today. The first Werewolf to take down a vampire in hundreds of years.”

  She looked to all of her team, these men who had followed her from Florida to Costa Rica, from Romania to Argentina. “Mr. Escabar, Mr. English, Mr. Jackson, as ‘just humans’, you guys made Wechselbalg respect the ground you walk on. You have given earth the chance to build our own army going into the future. You fought the Nosferatu before you met me, you have fought unflinchingly since. Now, we go to grind these assholes beneath our heels so we can reach up and prepare to defend our home.”

  Darrell said in a soft voice, “Oorah.”

  Bethany Anne reached out to Gabrielle, who handed the backpack to her. She unzipped the bag and pulled out six wine glasses and two pouches of blood. The men understood exactly what was going on, now. Each one stood straighter, if that was possible, after her comments before.