“My fault?” I say, watching the Men in Black mill about the craft.
“Don’t assume I’m so naïve. You’re in on this, aren’t you?” he says.
“Did you see what they did to me over there? How could I be in on it?” I say.
“But I wasn’t there, and I’m not an idiot. Is it any coincidence I get shot down and captured the night you show up?” Dave says.
“Yes. That’s exactly what it is. I’m working for – being manipulated by – the Chinese, not the Men in Black, remember? They’re with the U.S.,” I say.
Dave hacks blood onto the sand. “Fine, but remember what’s at stake here, because if you have any chance of cutting me loose, you need to do it. It doesn’t matter who gets ahold of me. The Chinese. The Americans. Doesn’t matter. They will try to use The Current to build the most devastating weapon ever created, the Apocalypse Bomb. Sure, they’ll also create a clean source of energy, but knowing your species, they won’t stop at that.”
“Yeah, yeah, you already told me that. But I’m telling you, I have nothing to do with these Men in Black,” I say. “We should be focusing on getting out of this mess.”
“Why? The game is over,” Dave says. “Your species is doomed. Once they create the Apocalypse Bomb, there’s no telling what will happen next.”
“Why should the game be over?” I say.
“You’re supposed to deliver me to the Chinese, right? So your daughter can live,” Dave says. “If we escape, who’s to say I won’t end up trading this group of assholes for another one?”
I see where he’s coming from with this, but I can’t shake the image of Ava from my head. Apocalypse Bomb be damned. She’s sick and she needs me to figure this out.
“I’ll find a way,” I say. “I always do.”
“I don’t think you’re understanding me,” Dave says. He clears his throat and looks me in the bruises around my eyes. “If we manage to escape, and I’m not sure we even can at this point, would you choose your daughter over the fate of the world?”
I breathe deep. It’s a question that’s festered in my mind ever since Dave first hinted at this Apocalypse Bomb.
I don’t have time for an answer, though. The Men in Black are ready to leave. They hoist us to our feet and herd us into the craft. The interior looks nothing like Dave’s digs. Reminds me of an airplane cockpit combined with a hospital operating room.
An operating room?
And that’s when the experiments begin.
These guys don’t wait around, do they?
The Men in Black start by forcing us onto stainless steel tables. Then they belt down our wrists, ankles, thighs, chests and foreheads, cinching the restraints so tight I think my bones might break.
But they didn’t restrain our voices, which Dave uses to unleash a string of profanity that could burn a hole in the ozone layer. I struggle, but my body is too broken from the beating it took, the Men in Black too omnipresent. In total, the black-suited crew must number about a dozen. This is a much larger craft than it appeared from the outside.
My guts feel the sensation of the craft lifting off, carrying my hopes of ever seeing my daughter again away with it. I hold out for the Men in Black to realize I’m no U.T. Maybe they’ll let me go.
“Chase, listen to me,” I hear Dave say once his cloud of obscenities dissipates.
I look across to the table a few feet away. I can’t turn my head, but I can still make out his stumpy shape. “I’m here.”
“Their suits are…,” Dave says. Something stuffed into his mouth cuts him off.
“Their suits are what?” I say before realizing he can’t talk anymore.
Neither can I. A Man in Black pours some sort of goo into my mouth that tastes like chicken-fried dog shit. Not that I’ve dined on such a delicacy, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind. It forms a gel too large to swallow or spit out.
All I can do is breathe through my nose and watch as a pair of drills is lowered from the ceiling above our heads. It’s looks like they’re going to…
“Drill into heads,” one of the Men in Black says to another. “Find where Current is installed. Then connect to computer.”
Oh, shit.
I hear the unnerving whine of the drills firing up and start a slow descent toward our heads. In 30 seconds, my brain’s going to be pancake batter.
What was it Dave was trying to tell me? Something about suits. The Men in Black’s suits?
Dave writhes against the restraints, his muffled screams growing louder with every inch closer the drills drop down.
Dave? Can you hear me? What were you trying to tell me about the suits?
I think the questions in Dave’s directions, but he doesn’t react. Then it hits me.
The suits. There must be something about them that interrupts The Current. That’s why Dave is helpless against these guys. Could it be the “black” in “Men in Black?” The dye in their black suits?
The revelation, if it’s even that, isn’t of much use. If he wants me to disrobe these assholes so he can use The Current, then I need to break free from these restraints. But I can barely wiggle my toes, much less hulk it off the table.
Dave’s screams subside as he tires from the struggling. He looks subdued and ready to accept his fate beneath the drill.
I’m not, though. Not when the well being of my daughter, along with the rest of the world, is on the line. But the tip of that drill is about 20 seconds away from my face, and I’m still out of ideas.
Think. Think. This isn’t as impossible as it seems. There’s always a way out.
I close my eyes, one of the few motor functions I have left to control, and reach down deep into that animalistic, fight-or-flight instinct. It’s the place I go in my mind when the answers aren’t so clear. Sometimes it’s best not to overthink things.
With a scant few seconds left, I make my move.
It would make sense for the table I’m on to be bolted to the floor, but I try to tip the whole works over regardless by throwing my weight to one side. No matter how tightly the restraints keep me from going vertical, they don’t do much to keep me in place horizontally. For how advanced this craft is, its designers overlooked this simple precaution.
Mustering the kind of strength I didn’t know I had, the type that only comes from staring down a drill aimed for my head, I slam my full force into the direction of Dave’s table parallel to me.
I don’t budge. Not even a little bit.
The Men in Black seem indifferent to my move. One even goes back to a control panel along the wall. To them, my fruitless struggling looks routine.
I try one more time, commanding my body to wrench itself into unnatural spams and knots as my weight careens to one side.
No dice. I can feel the breeze coming off in wisps from the spinning drill. It’s so close.
I wind up again, this time removing my focus from the table. I think of Ava, how scared she must be to face down her illness. To hear the news from her mom and step-dad that the money to get her the surgery she needs to live isn’t there anymore. How powerless, how hopeless, it must feel to look in the mirror and know your life is coming to an end before you even have a driver’s license. That the best days of your young life are behind you. The indifferent tragedy and pointlessness of disease.
I can’t let her down.
I beat myself into the restraints, catching a glimpse at a bewildered Dave wondering what the hell I’m doing. And with a snap and tumble, he realizes what’s just happened.
The table tips over. Whatever held it in place gives way, sending both the table and myself toward the ground in a diagonal fall.
I’m stopped before I hit the floor as the edge of the table catches the drill bit. Before the Men in Black can react, the drill buries itself into the restraint strapped to my right wrist, missing my flesh by a hair. The sudden slack allows me to wriggle my right hand free, although I shred the side of my hand against the bit.
I barely notice
the injury, instead turning my attention to a Man in Black rushing to the drill to investigate what happened. I fill him in by gripping his deep eye sockets like a bowling ball and guiding his head into the drill. The greasy results spew down the upturned table, tumbling hunks of gore onto and over me, painting the floor a chunky red.
All of this happens in the course of a few seconds. The other Men in Black are still realizing what happened. On top of the sudden departure of their co-worker, I doubt they’re aware of just how lucky I am. The Man in Black I killed is the same one who pocketed my .45.
Asshole.
I trade my grip on his face for one on the collar of his black suit jacket. The leverage of my awkward position allows me to yank the jacket up and over his shoulders, sending the gun onto my chest. I hold the .45 in place using my chin, then dig out the last mag from my bush jacket and slam it home. After racking the slide in a contorted dance between my chin and hand that is sure to leave some bruising later on, I take aim at the drill above Dave’s forehead.
Scratch that. It’s on his forehead, not above it anymore. The drill bites into the first layer of his skin just as I pull the trigger. The shot connects with what I assume is the drill’s motor hanging just above the spinning bit, sending shrapnel flying across the room. Another shot, and the drill falls to the floor.
Dave doesn’t look convinced he’s still alive, but he’ll be fine. I’m more worried about the Men in Black rushing toward us. I pop one in the eyes, assuming he won’t be a threat if he can’t see. Give a second one a similar treatment.
By force of habit, the kind the military doused my brain with in Ranger school, I count the rounds as I fire them. The mag holds seven shots, and I’ve spent four of them. There are at least nine more Men in Black if my initial tally is correct, but the specifics don’t matter. What does is that they’re all charging my way.
My brief attempt at escaping comes to an end as a crowd of fists pummels me into submission, twisting the gun from my hand and struggling to get the table back into position.
Dave looks over to me as if to say thanks for giving it the college try, but we’re fucked. I can’t help but agree with him.
A part of me is glad the U.S. will get the Apocalypse Bomb instead of China, but it’s little comfort. If history has taught me anything, it’s that technology has a way of taking on a life of its own. It can’t be contained forever, and that means the U.S. will only be the first, not the last, to use The Current, especially after its more benign uses become public. Same thing happened with nuclear energy.
Don’t give up. Not yet.
Before the Men in Black can finish cranking my free hand back into place, I have a final trick up my sleeve, almost literally. I slip it out of a pocket in my bush jacket a moment after they take the .45 away.
It’s my last chance, and I time my move just right to weigh the piss-poor odds slightly more to my favor.
This had better work.
It sounds like something the Boy Scouts would teach, but I give full credit to the military for engraining this lesson into my head: never leave home without a way to create fire. The lighter in my bush jacket doesn’t journey outside its pocket, except for situations like this one, when its flame is held to the dark sleeve of a Man in Black.
I’m not sure what my strategy is in trying to light the creepy bastard on fire, but I refuse to pass on the chance it’ll do something. It’s not like the Men in Black are going to kill me outright for trying. They still think The Current is somewhere in my brain, and I’m apparently no good to them dead. Immolation it is.
It turns out the Men in Black are a lot of things, but fireproof isn’t one of them. In an instant, the tiny flame matures into a smoky blaze that shoots up the Man in Black’s arm. He flails about as his comrades back away, terrified they’ll catch a spark.
One of them runs for a fire extinguisher on the wall, which looks hilariously out of place in a craft such as this one. The moment of chaos gives me a chance to reach a chard of broken drill bit next to my hand. Its sharp grooves act like a saw as I work it against the restraint on my other hand. A couple seconds later, I regain full use of both my hands and arms.
With a hiss and a poof, the fiery sleeve is extinguished, and the Men in Black return their focus to the pain in their proverbial ass. This time, they’re not so willing to return me to the comfort of the restraints. They’re finished with me, not willing to risk me jeopardizing their entire mission, even if I am a U.T. in their eyes.
The Man in Black with my .45 takes aim from a few feet away, not wanting to get too close to me. I do my best to give him a lousy shot, but I know the three rounds left don’t put the odds in my favor.
I don’t hear the sound of the gunshot. I doubt many do when the bullet with their name on it makes contact. I remember a brief sucking sound in my ears, like a vacuum struggling with a wad of rubber bands, before losing consciousness.
Am I dead?
I’ve wondered the question many times before and, granted, not once has the answer been yes. Obviously.
I think, therefore I am.
Opening my eyes, I see that not much time has passed since the gunshot. I’m still stuck to this table. So is Dave. And we’ve yet to leave this shithole “UFO.”
Fortunately for us, though, everyone else has made a grand exit. That sucking sound I heard right before I lost consciousness? That was the vacuum of the upper atmosphere ripping open the bullet hole the Man in Black put in the wall.
Serves you right for taking my gun.
It’s a common myth that shooting a hole in an airplane will send everything inside not bolted down on a free trip back to Earth. While it’s not a good idea to test it out, the plane’s pressurizers will, usually, compensate for the difference, at least on larger aircraft.
But this is no plane. It’s a bucket of reverse-engineered bolts and Christmas lights, and I’m betting we’re flying well above the regular altitude for commercial airliners. The rules are a little different. Which is why it’s raining Men in Black somewhere over the southwestern United States.
I’m happy to see them go, but that also means Dave and I have a fresh set of problems. That Men-in-Black-sized hole in the wall is spreading. Fast. And the craft seems to be hurtling end over end and losing altitude rapidly, judging by the way my guts churn like an unbalanced washing balance.
Ironically, the restraints are the only reason Dave and I are still inside. My chest and legs are still secured to the table, and Dave hasn’t budged an inch. But given the rising tug coming from that missing wall, we won’t last much longer. Even if we do, there’s no way we’ll survive the inevitable crash landing.
I want to shout to Dave, to ask him if there’s anything he can do, but that goo is still lodged in my mouth, stuck in place despite the vacuum. His eyes are closed anyway. He probably passed out.
I’m feeling the same way. The G forces are so intense I can feel my eyeballs sinking into their sockets. I couldn’t move if I wanted to, and the craft’s spinning is picking up speed. It’s only a matter of time before my brain says it’s fed up and turns out the lights.
But before that can happen, something peculiar takes place near the hole in the wall. If I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t believe it.
The spinning craft slows enough so that I can see what appear to be missiles rushing toward the hole in the wall. As they get closer, I make out their form against the sparkle of the stars in the background.
Those aren’t missiles. That’s debris from this craft, and it’s coming straight for us. But how is that possible?
The craft’s tumbling descent suddenly comes to a halt. The cluttered debris floats outside the craft, organizing itself into the exact shape of the hole in the wall. Then, as if by magic, it slides into place with uncanny precision. The interior of the craft falls silent as the patch forms an airtight seal.
But I know it isn’t magic. It’s Dave.
I look over to him, but he’s gone.
; Was he sucked out at the last minute?
“Hello, Chase,” says a familiar voice out of view.
The goo dislodges itself from my mouth, falling to the floor with a splat next to the restraints no longer holding me to the table. I slide off, rubbing the blood back into my arms and legs. My body feels like it’s been put through a jerky gun.
“Dave?” I say, turning to face the stout U.T.
“That was bloody brilliant,” Dave says and slaps me on my aching back. “Those TV meteorologist hacks down there won’t know what hit ‘em when they see what’s falling down from the sky.”
He’s in a surprisingly good mood considering everything, as if he just woke up from a nap. I, on the other, could use a nap myself.
“Are you…?” I start to say before Dave cuts me off.
“Yes, I’m using The Current,” he says and hands me back my .45. Only two rounds left in it, but I’m still grateful to have it back. “The special black ink in their suits is how the Men in Black can cancel it out. Get rid of the suits, as you did, and I’m back in business. I transferred this POS craft’s batteries and the kinetic energy of our free fall to patch the hole in the wall.”
I knew it.
“And you even returned my gun. Thanks for that,” I say and holster the .45.
“I owe you my life, Mr. Baker. The rest of the world does, too,” Dave says. He’s sincere this time. “It’s the least I could do.”
Somewhere out there, I’m throwing off the average for luckiness, and it’s giving someone the worst day ever.
“Can you fly this thing or are we stuck here?” I say and walk to what I think is a control panel.
“You obviously can’t,” Dave says and gives a pompous snort. “That’s the control for the septic pump.”
Nice to see he’s back to his usual self.
“Well, can you?” I say.
“Of course I can,” Dave says. “I can’t create energy with The Current, only redirect it. So I’m using the descent to steer us safely back to where we landed, so to speak, in Roswell. There’s no time to waste. More Men in Black will be on their way.”
Chase Baker & the Apocalypse Bomb (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 7) Page 6
