One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  Henry stopped talking and sulked upon his mount, while Adriel climbed with the nimble dexterity of an acrobat up the bag and hid beneath Selk's saddle. What did Selk mean by not yet? She thought. Were the cyclopes planning an attack? She had to get home and tell the elders. But how? Selk dipped below the clouds and Adriel could see the mountain home of the cyclopes with their log cabins dotting the mountainside. Sitting on top of the closest mountain range was a gigantic stone castle.

  "Whatever you're going to do, you'd better do it, because if anyone finds her, especially after that less-than-graceful getaway, you're done." Selk said.

  "I'm working on it." Henry said.

  The cyclopes could never be referred to as intellectuals, being hunters and gatherers, and they were a warlike society beyond that, but Henry was even less brilliant. Kidnapping Adriel was a knee jerk reaction, likened to how a child who spots a fun toy can't resist tossing it in the cart while his mom's back is turned. He had a lifetime habit of performing stunts he thought seemed smart at the time, but always ended in disaster and humiliation. A lot of times his shame would fall on the people of his town, and if they found out what he had done over at the human city it would mean banishment, or worse. A trial before the serpent would be certain death, and the humans would probably be coming for the girl. Selk landed beside the Henry’s log cabin, and when Henry opened up his side bag he discovered the gash on the side, and realized that Adriel was gone.

  "This situation may have resolved itself." Henry said.

  "Not in there?" Selk asked.

  "Nothings in there. Looks like one o' them lasers cut the bag open. She must have fallen out." Henry said.

  Adriel, still underneath the saddle, held her breath and waited for the cyclops to leave so that she could run for the woods. Henry turned the bag inside out and a few chunks of rotten meat dropped to the ground.

  "Good riddance!" Henry said.

  He dismounted Selk and went inside while Adriel remained hidden under Selk’s saddle. The dragon began to walk toward a large, dark, cavernous opening in the side of the mountain.

  "Little girl. You should run while you can. Henry will be punished by the council if they find you, but the cyclops will never allow you to leave. They’ll either eat you or feed you to their serpent god." Selk said in common tongue.

  Adriel was terrified.

  "I can hear your heartbeat, and your odor is so strong I could track you from a mile high in the sky, even if you were ten miles away on the ground."

  Could the dragon read her mind?

  "Yes." Selk replied.

  Adriel came out of hiding, scaled the large saddle, and walked up Selk’s scales toward his long neck.

  "Can you give me a ride back, please?" Adriel asked.

  "You could make it back to your people on foot in about three weeks. Serves you right for being outside your walls before the gates were open." Selk said.

  "Look, you could fly me back home and the cyclopes will never know the difference. You’re so fast, Selk." Adriel said.

  "Ha ha ha, flattery will get you almost everywhere. I’d be banished if my dragonkin found out and there are not many dragons left in this world. I need all the friends I can get these days. I’m sorry." Selk said.

  "OK, which way do I walk?" Adriel asked.

  "Walk east, and then you will find a road leading back to your…" Selk paused.

  "Return the girl, and we'll let you all live!" A voice boomed.

  "We ain’t got no girl. Get out o’ ‘ere!" A cyclops woman screamed.

  "Very well." The voice answered.

  A vimana darted through a clearing in the trees, firing a white-hot bolt of light into Henry’s house, setting it ablaze. The cyclops began screaming from inside, and ran out through the gaping hole created in his wall. One arm had been blown off, and he was dancing around, covered in flames. Another shot ripped through his neck and he fell to the dark root and boulder-covered earth, dead.

  "Your parents are coming for you. The war has begun… a little too early." Selk said.

  Selk trotted off with Adriel on his back into the cavern.

  "Let’s get you out of the line of fire, shall we?" Selk said.

  "You’re protecting me? Why?" Adriel asked.

  "Dragons are protectors, child. Our folly was to have formed a pact with the cyclopes over a thousand years ago. They mine gold for us, feeding our addiction to the yellow rock, and we defend them against invaders. Your people will destroy everything here to get to you, no matter what or who has to die in the process. The cyclopes are great warriors as well, and will attempt to kill all who invade their territory. This battle will be the end of everything in this kingdom."

  "If my people are looking for me, I could just run out there and wave them down. That would stop this, right?" Adriel said.

  Swarms of dragons began to take to the skies as an aerial battle was waged in the name of vengeance.

  "Like a dry field of wheat, all it takes is a tiny spark to ignite the fire of war between the humans and cyclopes." Selk said.

  Fire and lasers crisscrossed the sky like the wrath of a terrible god, igniting trees and setting the entire mountainside ablaze as man and cyclops fought with blind hatred. Large troop transports began to arrive from the human city, and as they landed, centurions rushed forth, wielding swords of flame, and rods that fired beams of light. Screams, smoke, and flames erupted through the afternoon until darkness descended upon the mountain fortress. Sometime in the night, all went quiet.

  "I just wanted an apple." Adriel said in the darkness of the cavern.

  "Did you get one?" Selk asked.

  "Henry grabbed me before I could."

  "An entire war started over such a small thing. Hardly seems worth it." Selk replied.

  "You could be a little nicer, you know?"

  "I know."

  She got the point. Adriel leaving the city had set in motion a chain of events that had been unexpected, and completely devastating to two races that were already in a state of disease.

  "All I wanted to do was have an apple." Adriel said.

  She sat next to the dragon in his cave and put her head in her hands. Selk considered Adriel’s character for a moment, and suspected that a part of her childhood was gone after experiencing the misery war brings.

  "All of this is an illusion, Adriel. Remember that we create our world with our thoughts." Selk explained.

  Adriel did not understand the dragon's cryptic message, but as time wore on, and she grew older, it would begin to make sense. She would come to live her life by those words. Smoke slowly drifted through the trees, carrying the odor of charred bodies, destroyed vimana's, and burning log cabins. The mixture was so strong, and Adriel began to feel her stomach turn. The fighting was over and the aftermath was more than she could bear. Adriel pushed her thumbs into her eyes to stop the pressure.

  "Can you please take me home? It’s dark now, and since Henry’s probably dead maybe they won’t miss you." Adriel said.

  The dragon looked down at Adriel’s innocent face, charred with soot, and scraped from her ordeal inside the storage bag.

  "Let’s go. I’ll take you back."

  Selk dropped a wing and allowed her to climb aboard his saddle, and in an instant they were soaring through the sky. Stars poked through the darkness like the lights of distant souls dancing in the vastness of space. Selk rose above an ocean of clouds to give Adriel the best view, and Adriel, who had had never seen the night sky so alive with magic was speechless. She lay against the coarse scales of her new friend and the horror of her day began to evaporate. She was a little girl once more, and as tears fell from bloodshot, tired eyes, ready for rest Adriel drifted off to sleep. Selk smiled, and when he reached the human city he gently rolled her awake before landing.

  "You're home, Adriel." Selk whispered.

  "Oh, thank you!" Adriel yawned.

  "Do me a favor and remember me when you're older." Selk said.

  "Are you going back
to the cyclops kingdom?" Adriel asked.

  "No, I think I'll move north. I'm over four hundred years old, and a hundred of them were spent in that kingdom of fools. It's time for a change of scenery." Selk said.

  "Will I see you again?"

  "Oh, I'm sure. Goodbye for now, Adriel." Selk said.

  As Adriel walked toward the front gate, she looked back over her shoulder. Selk hid out of sight, but she could still see the dark profile of his body, just beside the apple trees. He remained there until the gate was opened to ensure Adriel was safe, and then he took flight.

  "Until we meet again, my friend." Selk whispered and vanished.

  the hell razors

  "May God have mercy on my enemies, because I won’t." ~ General George S. Patton, JR.

  The Great Dictator was dead. Hitler had taken his life when the Allied forces invaded Berlin toward the end of World War II, but Adolf’s high command and some of his best scientists escaped in a submarine for parts unknown. Werner von Braun, Werner Dahm, and other SS officers avoided the Nuremberg trials by escaping through a Red Cross program code-named Operation Paperclip, and ultimately helped the United States get to the moon. But those loyal to the Fuhrer had no intention of surrendering to Western powers, so they vanished. No trace was found of the war criminals until two weeks ago when a weather satellite happened to catch images of a white and grey painted building, with the Nazi Swastika painted on the sides, sticking out of the ice in Antarctica. The office of General Hank Ashby was busy with intelligence officers reporting the recent discovery in the South Pole, and the CIA had already begun watching the base to determine if a threat existed.

  "What have we got, really? I want hard facts. I’ve heard about these modern day skinheads and neo-Nazi gangs and I think they’re all bullshit time-wasters. What’s different about this facility than any other place in the world where dipshits are still carrying the flag of a defeated psychopath?" The General asked.

  "Well sir, we believe this is a super-secret airbase designed to harbor and create electrogravitic spacecraft and hyper-dimensional portals." Colonel Ream said.

  "English, goddamnit." General Ashby said.

  Another officer named Wilkins entered the room with a stack of photographs just as Colonel Ream was finishing his last sentence.

  "General, the Nazis are building flying saucers and time travel machines. We’ve got some great pictures of some of them." Wilkins placed the stack on General Ashby’s desk.

  "Interesting. What do the boys at Langley have?" General Ashby asked.

  "General, my name is Agent Tom Braggart, and I think you’re going to be interested in what we’ve found so far." Agent Braggart said.

  Braggart pulled a miniature projector from his bag and connected it to a laptop he had opened on the coffee table and then directed the projector to a white space on the wall.

  "Could someone please dim the lights and close the blinds?" Agent Braggart asked.

  The room went dark a few moments later and everyone was looking at black and white images of large metal disks, some flying through the air, some sitting on the ground, and others being boarded by men in jumpsuits. Braggart zoomed in on one of the men.

  "What am I looking at, agent?" General Ashby asked.

  "The man on the right is Goel Fisk, a torsion physicist who used to work for the Russian space and missile program; that is until the USSR crumbled on 1991. He dropped off the map until we caught him in this picture.

  "Recruited by Nazis?" General Ashby said.

  "We think the Nazis have been working on this program for the last seventy years and we now know they’ve created vehicles that can travel without the use of petroleum-based fuel. What else they can do, we don't know at this time." Agent Braggart said.

  "But whatever it is, those machines pose a threat to national security." General Ashby said.

  "Yes General, that's what we think anyway. We've only had a few weeks to gather information, but it looks like the Nazi's have formed a Fourth Reich." Agent Braggart said.

  "I'll alert the President, if he doesn't already know." General Ashby said.

  General Ashby cleared the room and notified President Yates that there had been an interesting discovery in Antarctica. Once he understood the situation, President Yates called a briefing with General Ashby, Franklin Navarro Beans, secretary of defense, Dick Powers, national security advisor, Sherry Cummings, his foreign policy advisor, and Doug Knightly, director of the CIA. One hour after General Ashby made the call; he was sitting in the Oval Office with some of the most important people in the modern world, and feeling very uncomfortable. The President entered and their conversation began.

  "If what the General says is true, and the intel your boys at the CIA gathered is accurate, Doug, then we may have a serious problem on our hands." President Yates said.

  "It's accurate, Mr. President. We've seen craft entering and exiting a subterranean opening on the Nazi base. These saucers are quick, too. Our fighters couldn't touch 'me the way they zip around." Doug said.

  "Mr. President, I think we should send a team of highly trained operatives up there and take that base down. That way we don't have to acknowledge the Third Reich never completely died, declare official war on the Nazis again and start World War III. We can do it nice and quiet." Frank said.

  "If we attack that base, and this gets out to the press, the backlash could destabilize our relationships with our foreign partners." Sherry Cummings said.

  "Sir, if we attack that base you'll be a world hero. These bastards have been on the run for seventy years, and it looks like they're arming themselves for something big. We need to strike now." Doug said.

  "Let me see video of these things flying. Any of you got something like that?" The President said.

  "Yes sir, I've got it on my laptop. One second." Doug said.

  Moments later President Yates was watching a satellite feed of three saucers hovering above the base, and then in formation, they lifted off and were gone before he could blink. He sat back in his fine leather chair, a hand on his chin, and thought about his next move.

  "This is great!" President Yates yelled.

  "Sir?" General Ashby asked.

  "I want that technology for our space program. General Ashby, do you have any people that would volunteer for a suicide mission to get the job done? We need to get some of those scientists, too." The president said.

  Everyone could see he was serious, and the General thought for a minute.

  "I know a guy. He goes by the name Major Cataclysm, and he calls his band of misfits The Hell Razor’s." General Ashby said.

  "That's a hell of a name. Do you trust him?" Dick asked.

  "I trust him completely to get this job done, but I guess a little background wouldn't hurt. His real name is Major Pete Dexter, and a few years back he was on an extraction mission in Baghdad, when his helicopter was shot down by insurgents. In the fire, one of his grenades went off and destroyed half of his body. Pararescue got him out, and our surgeons were able to save him, thanks to advanced cybernetics and skeletal reconstruction techniques. Ninety percent of his skeletal structure was replaced by titanium rods, and millions of nanobots were injected to bind the muscle tissue to those rods." General Ashby said.

  "Sounds like some kind of Robocop." Doug laughed.

  "The Major does not work or play well with others. He was a fine combat tactician, but after the incident, he was discharged and became a MERC. We still use him as a contractor though; the man is an efficient killer. His most recent mission was for the military down in Ecuador; they were having some trouble controlling the drug trade, so they requested Major C. by name. They needed someone who would get the job done, and not ask questions, but his methods are, and I hate to say it but, a bit unsound." General Ashby said.

  "He doesn't have to be a boy scout, General. He just needs to get in there and get us a flying saucer, and some of them guys who make it work. Can he do it?" The President asked.

  "Mr. Pre
sident, I'll be on the next plane to South America. I have a feeling Cataclysm won’t turn down the chance to kill some Nazis. He's probably going to want a lot of money to do it, though."

  "Excellent, General. We make money all day long, so that's no issue. Give him what he wants, and after we get what we want, we'll inform Interpol of the Nazi presence, and let the UN take care of that mess. Meeting adjourned, thanks for coming everyone!" President Yates said.

  General Ashby caught a ride on a C-130 the next morning, bound for an unmarked airstrip in the middle of Panama’s dense jungles. When he landed, he was greeted by a Spec Ops Captain named Walthorp, who had been assigned to the drug task force detail and was one of Major Cataclysm’s subordinates. The Captain was in jungle fatigues, and had a combat beard that was well on its way to reaching his chest.

  "Welcome to Hell, General. The Major’s out on a scouting detail right now, but he should be back within the hour. He was informed that you were on your way and told me to let you know he wouldn't be long. We’ve got a great air-conditioned trailer for you to wait in, too. The Major stole it from some cartel guys a few weeks back." Captain Walthorp said.

  "Thank you, Captain. That’ll be great. You boys stopped shaving down here, huh?" General Ashby asked.

  "Oh no sir, we shave pretty regularly." Captain Walthorp replied.

  On their way to trailer, the General noticed that over two dozen men had been buried up to their necks in dirt. Separated into two rows about three feet apart, the dead men formed a path to the trailer, and each head was adorned with a large white candle attached by melted, dripping wax. The effect was like something out of a Wes Craven movie. Gaping eyeless sockets stared up at the sky.

  "You like the path lighters, General? These are some of the cartel guys we were sent down here to get control of, but there are some men you just can't be reasonable with. The Major thinks they give the place some atmosphere at night, plus the candles keep us from tripping in the dark." Captain Walthorp said.