Apex 2: Rise of the Super Soldiers

by Adam Moon

The young woman said, “I hope you’re not too attached to that.” Before the interviewer could answer her, the phone floated off of the table by a few inches and then it began to crackle. The faceplate cracked down the middle and the plastic casing shattered. Within ten seconds the entire thing had been crushed down to the size of a sugar cube. It hovered in the air like that and then it plinked onto the wooden surface. The cameraman moved closer to show the viewing audience the resultant destruction.

  The interviewer picked what was left of the phone up and then dropped it right away. “It’s hot to the touch,” he said softly.

  Watson looked around the room incredulously. His soldiers were staring at the screen in various stages of bewilderment and disbelief.

  He said, “This is worth investigating. Any additional intel on the Grey aliens is welcome and I think these two kids might know more about them than anyone else.”

  The communications officer said, “I knew you’d be interested.”

  “Get me clearance to approach the news station for their contact info. We need to bring in those kids. But we need to be careful not to appear too aggressive now that the entire world is watching them.”

  Watson needed to find out where the kids were, what it would take to gain their trust, and then get them to the bunker to interrogate them about the aliens. He had to know what they’d done to defeat them. He had to know what had happened to that alien sphere they’d spoken of too. If it had granted them powers, just imagine what it could do for a highly trained soldier. If a follow-up attack came, humanity would fall easily but maybe they stood half a chance if they could acquire super powers like those two teenagers.

  Then he had another idea: if he could get those kids to show off their inhuman abilities in front of the Grey captives, it might frighten them enough to talk.

  He was optimistic for the first time in a month. The news station was local. It was Fox News Denver, which meant the two teenagers were just a State away.

  All Together

  Two hours after the news trucks left, Jack called Melanie. “Do you want to meet out at the farm?” That meant, did she want to meet at Dan and Molly’s farmhouse. Dan and Molly had also been affected by the alien sphere. It had fallen on their land and then sprayed all of them at the same time. The memory brought a pang of guilt with it too. He remembered Scott. Scott, Jack’s childhood friend, and Melanie’s first boyfriend, had died fighting the alien invaders. It had been a whole month since they’d buried him, but it still hadn’t sunk all the way in yet.

  Melanie said, “I’ll come and get you. I can’t be out too late though.” Melanie and Jack had grown closer together since Scott’s death. She’d always been a friend, but now she was more than that.

  Jack added, for clarity, “I only want to test out our powers. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in five minutes.” Jack thought he detected a hint of disappointment in her voice. He hoped it was because she wanted to spend her time with him doing more intimate activities, but they hadn’t crossed that bridge yet so he had no way to be sure. Maybe she just wasn’t in the mood to practice. Or maybe he’d imagined it.

  They had to practice though. Their powers were changing. While their initial powers were becoming familiar, the intensity was increasing, sometimes to a degree that they couldn’t control. And latent abilities had started to surface too.

  Molly was super strong but lately she was convinced that she was having precognizant dreams as well. When Jack had lost control of his powers last month and vanished, feared dead, she was the only one to insist he was still alive because she’d dreamt it. Her husband, Dan, could emit heat from his body, but just recently he discovered that he could also become statically charged, able to direct little sparks from his fingertips. His aim was terrible, but he was practicing and getting incrementally better each day.

  No additional abilities had sprung forth from Jack or Melanie but that didn’t mean they were in the clear.

  Melanie met Jack out by the railroad tracks and they walked across farmland until they got to the little farmhouse.

  Dan and Molly’s old house had been demolished during the attempted invasion a month ago so they were still settling in to their new digs. The house was a bit smaller than the last and it had that old dusty smell to it still but it was getting better each time they visited. Because of the fall of civilization, they didn’t even need to pay for it. Financial institutions had all but vanished from public influence during and after the invasion. If there was a silver lining, that was it, and it wasn’t much of one.

  Dan looked up from his paper and smiled. “I saw you two showing off on the news. You’re a couple of bonafide celebrities now, I suppose.”

  Jack knew how private the couple was so he made sure to say that they hadn’t mentioned them during the interviews, on-air or off.

  Molly had an apron on with a bunch of crudely drawn farm animals printed across it. That type of attire no longer suited her now that she’d changed. The mist from the sphere had made them all stronger, more muscular, with skin that was nearly impenetrable. Molly didn’t try and hide her buff physique like Melanie did. She was proud of it but she still didn’t know how to showcase it with the proper clothes.

  She was baking bread when they all came inside. She pulled her apron over her head and gave Melanie and Jack a tight hug, nearly knocking the wind out of them. “Hi, super-stars. I saw you guys all over the news. How did it go?”

  Jack said, “It went okay, I guess. We had no choice. Someone let the cat out of the bag.”

  Dan sat and rested his beefy arms on the kitchen table. “It was probably a Godsend, you know. The government won’t touch you now that your faces are plastered all over the TV.”

  Jack snickered. “That’s what my mom said too.”

  Molly said, “I heard they might open the schools next month.”

  Jack shrugged. “By then we’ll be thinking about college, if they ever open their doors again. Melanie and I already graduated. All the seniors got a diploma in the mail.”

  “But no one earned it, right?”

  “We survived an alien invasion when most people didn’t. That has to earn you something in life.”

  “I suppose. You two are bright kids anyway.” Her voice dropped an octave as she changed the subject. “I had another one of those dreams.”

  Jack sat up straighter. “Which one?”

  “The one about that evil Grey leader, General Shaylo.”

  They had come to view Molly’s dreams as portends of coming doom. She’d been right in her predictions too often now for them to dismiss them as fantasy.

  Molly continued, “He’s almost here. He’s furious and he’s a brilliant tactician. But he’s having some reservations. He thinks his superiors have sent him on a mission without the appropriate intel. Because he’s smart, he’s reevaluating his plan of attack. The second wave might not come as soon as I first thought because he’s going to take the time to figure us out before he moves in.”

  Melanie said, “That’s good, right? It will give us more time to get ready for him.”

  Molly nodded absently. “I suppose you’re right.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed.

  Melanie broke it when she asked, “Is it alright if we go out back and practice?”

  Molly’s eyes came back into focus. She sucked air between her teeth and said, “Not until you eat. You both look like shit.”

  They might have argued but the smell of fresh bread had their stomachs rumbling.

  During the meal of warm bread, butter, and marmalade, Dan’s hair stood on end. When he smoothed it back down, little sparks jumped between his hand and head, making his hair stand to attention even more. No one mentioned it though because it clearly embarrassed him.

  Dan wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and said, “I’m going to join you. I need to get this under control before I accidentally electrocute Molly in her sleep.”

  Molly didn’t smile.
“You’re a deathtrap, Dan. I used to just have to worry about you burning the house down, but now I can’t even take a bath with you in the same room. I might as well take a bath with a toaster in the tub.”

  Dan shrugged and said to the teenagers, “We’ve gone through two TV’s already and I blew out the motor in the blender this morning.”

  Jack added, “I phase out now even when I don’t mean to. We all should practice before this gets out of hand.”

  “I’m fine just the way I am,” argued Molly. “I’m strong and I can dream the future. There’s no need to rein in those abilities.”

  They all nodded and left Molly to her baking.

  She smirked as the scene outside her kitchen window became chaos. Flames lit up the sky as garden objects flew around. Small pops either meant Jack was teleporting or Dan was blowing stuff up. The sound of laughter almost convinced her to join them, but someone had to act like a grown up.

  Side Mission

  Molly leaned in closer to the TV. The news was on which meant a lot of doom and gloom was being broadcast. Ever since humanity had nearly been wiped out, the planet had grown morose, and for good reason. A story had aired about a new array of defense satellites scheduled to launch sometime next year, to make sure they were never attacked by surprise again by extraterrestrial invaders. She smiled as that aired. It gave her hope for a safer and secure future. Of course, just because they could see the aliens coming didn’t mean they could do anything about it.

  A news anchor touched on the captive alien situation. No one knew for sure how many aliens had surrendered last month because certain countries still held old fashioned distrust towards other countries so they weren’t divulging their numbers. The new estimate was nothing but a shot in the dark that might have been skewed either way by a factor of ten. A devious part of her wished they could just exterminate all of them, if only to be done with all of the fear that holding them brought. She wasn’t alone in her sentiment, but cooler heads prevailed. If they killed them off, then they were no better than the aliens. And if a second invasion ever came, maybe they could use the captives as leverage of some kind. If nothing else, they might be able to garner some kind of intel from the captured aliens to help them survive a second wave.

  It was all the same old crap though. Every news hour brought the same stories, dressed a little differently, but the same, nonetheless.

  An actual news story about a real human tragedy was what had made her scoot closer to the TV. Three young mountain climbers were feared dead. They’d set out two weeks ago to scale Mount Everest. They used their sat-phone to stay in touch the first week, but no one had heard from them since then. Then a picture of two young men a young woman appeared on the screen. They were all smiling, full of that new lease on life that the invasion had brought into the hearts of some of the survivors. The picture broke her heart.

  When she heard a crackling noise outside followed by laughter, she realized something could be done for those youngsters, if they were still alive on the mountain.

  She hollered for Dan, and said, “Bring everyone. I have a mission for a superhero.”

  They rushed in, eagerness and curiosity all over their faces.

  She rewound the news story to let them see what she was talking about. “Jack, you could be there in less than a second. If they’re trapped, or whatever, Melanie can remove whatever’s obstructing them.”

  Dan slowly nodded his head. “I could go with them. Everest is freezing. They’ll need heat.”

  Molly shook her head. It’ll be easier for Jack to just teleport them back here than it would be to remain while you warm the place up. You’d probably just burst them all into flames anyway.”

  “Hey! I’m getting much better with the fire.”

  Jack interrupted before an argument broke out. “I’ll go alone. Even if they’re trapped, I can teleport them or the obstruction away.”

  Melanie turned and stared at him as though he’d just betrayed her deeply, but she kept quiet after Dan and Molly nodded their approval.

  Molly said, “I really want to give you the new costume I just made, but now that the cat’s out of the bag, you don’t need it. Everyone already knows your true identity.”

  Jack knew she secretly wanted him to wear it anyway so he insisted, if only to appease her. She was like a second mom to him and he’d hate to hurt her feelings.

  Melanie asked if she had one too and Molly nodded excitedly before rushing from the room and then returning with two brown paper parcels. She handed them each one and then took a seat, saying, “Hurry up. Those kids aren’t going to save themselves.” She looked at Dan and said jokingly, “And that’s another reason I don’t want you going. I don’t want you to burn those fine costumes by accident.”

  Dan just shook his head, flipped her off, and then went to the kitchen for a beer.

  She laughed at his back. Part of their longevity as a couple was that neither of them took themselves too seriously and both liked to tease the other.

  Jack went to the bathroom to change and when he came out, Melanie wolf-whistled as Molly said, “Wow.”

  He did a little twirl and Molly added, “You’ve gotten big, Jack. You look like Lou Ferrigno back in the day.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The Incredible Hulk.”

  “So I look like a green, mindless monster?”

  “No. You have the body of the guy who played the green monster. Never mind. It was supposed to be a compliment.”

  Dan peeked his head around the corner. “Ignore it, Jack. Molly doesn’t know how to give compliments.”

  “You’re just mad because I’ve never said you look like Lou Ferrigno.”

  “No. I’m not at all mad about that, honey.”

  “Whatever,” she said absently as she turned back to Jack. “So what do you think?”

  “I love it.”

  Melanie traipsed off to the bathroom saying over her shoulder, “I want to see how mine looks.”

  Jack sensed that she felt slighted for not being included so when she came back, rocking Molly’s hand stitched spandex, he said, “I want you to come to Everest with me.”

  She raised her eyebrows and said accusatorially, “I must not look very good in my outfit if that’s the first thing you thought to say.”

  Lately, her lightheartedness had given way to a more surly side. It was no surprise considering what she’d been through.

  He smiled and did his best to smooth it over. “I think you look great. That’s why I want you to come with. I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”

  She smiled sheepishly and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. You should go alone. You don’t need me.”

  She was right, so he let the conversation die a natural death.

  Molly stared at him for a beat too long and finally, flustered, said, “Get going then. If those kids are alive, you need to get them home.”

  Jack had no idea where to start and neither did Molly, so he figured he’d just find them by trial and error. It was a poor plan, but he’d do just about anything to keep the people he loved happy. He nodded and vanished.

  He appeared above Everest and immediately regretted ever listening to Molly. He’d be out here for months searching. And how would she feel if he came back empty-handed?

  He teleported back to the farmhouse. “I need to see that footage again. I have no idea where their last known whereabouts were; I have no clue where to start.”

  Dan rewound the show until the map appeared again. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was better than what he had to work with just a minute ago.

  He shook his head and disappeared again.

  Above Everest, it was impossible to make out the features of the map shown on the TV. The scales were all wrong. For all he knew, he might’ve been on the opposite side.

  He swooped down, through the air, and down the side of the mountain closest to him. All he saw was snow and rock. At the bottom, he whirled about and faced
upwards. He climbed through the air, thirty feet to the left and scanned the ground as he went. At the top, he stopped.

  At this rate they’d be dead before he ever got to them, if they weren’t dead already.

  He looked around frantically. He was super strong but he still felt heat and cold, and he was starting to shiver already.

  He focused his vision the way he did when he was about to teleport foreign objects. He had to be careful not to accidentally teleport entire sections of mountain away, so just as his focus became crystal clear, he pulled back before he lost control.

  It was hopeless, but he couldn’t go back to Molly and throw his hands in the air, saying, “It was just too hard so I gave up and let them die.”

  He focused his sight down another face of the mountain, gave up and floated onwards, to a different spot. He stopped and floated in the air, unconsciously teleporting his own body millions of times a second to keep himself aloft.

  He focused again but this time, a feeling accompanied the sharpened vision. He felt a weakened, watered down despair coupled with physical pain coming from the south. He allowed the strange feeling to direct him, floating south as his vision swept the landscape below. The despair increased, becoming palpable, like it was his own. Finally, when he didn’t know if he could handle it any more, he felt a weird surge of elation wash over him. And then he heard muffled voices far below.

  He focused and saw three figures waving up at him frantically. Apparently the multicolored costume had helped after all, since it had probably caught their attention.

  He swooped down and watched them staring at him in awe as he put his feet on the frozen ground. One of the guys took a frightened step backwards but the other two rushed forward to greet him, or at least to see if he was real or a figment of their fevered imaginations.

  Jack beckoned the other guy forward, put his arms over all three of their shoulders, and teleported them back to the farmhouse.

  In that moment, he realized that the dread and the elation he’d felt was their dread and elation. He’d empathetically connected to them somehow. He didn’t know what that meant. It was a new ability that seemed a little weak or inconsequential, but he had to admit to himself that it had come in handy at just the right time.