2 Minutes to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  “Wudyu gimme? Stranquilzers?” He asked.

  The man in the white coat approached and shook the part of Tony’s hand that was not strapped to a rail.

  “Good morning, sir! Doctor Lazarus, don’t poke fun though. No one raised me from the dead, yet! Ha, ha. I’m pleased to meet you, and this is a historic day for sure. I read your vitals, and blood work and you’re a perfect candidate for the trial.” He said.

  The doctor gave Tony a thumbs up.

  “As for those poor sons o’ bitches, well, you can’t make an omelet without… you know the saying. Anyway, those are failed experiments where the test subjects expired or overstayed their usefulness. So, we liquefy them and their remains are used in manufacturing processes around the world.” The doctor said.

  “Thazzz nize. Liquid…” Tony replied.

  “I’ve got high hopes for you my friend. Tony Davis, right? Anyway, you should only be here a few more days and then we’ll return you to the herd after wiping your memory. I don’t want you thinking any more about those barrels, you’re not going in there. Well, that’s not the plan anyway!” Lazarus laughed.

  He clapped Tony on the shoulder and winked at the woman who was standing silently beside the dentist’s chair. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “Gwen, could you get me a syringe, and some of the serum, please? I think Mr. Davis here is doped up enough not to feel anything when we administer.” Dr. Lazarus said.

  “Right away.” She replied.

  A few moments later Gwen returned, and placed the requested objects on the rectangular table.

  “You people are monzterz…” Tony said.

  “Not at all, Mr. Davis. We’re scientists. How do you think medical science got where it is today? Did you know that a lot of what we know about the human body in our time is because of work done by Nazi scientists during the Second World War? You won’t see it publicized, because, my God who would want to think that Hitler’s ‘monsters’ actually benefited society with their horror show, but we’re carrying on their work. Hell, we’ve got the cure for AIDS down here.”

  Gwen shined a light into Tony’s eyes.

  “He’s ready, doctor. Do you want me to hook up the brain monitor and video screen this time?” Gwen asked.

  “Yes, please do. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. I think he’ll get us all the way there.” Dr. Lazarus replied.

  Gwen did as asked and in a few minutes Tony was looking into a blank black monitor with a wire taped to his left index finger. There was a small desktop computer connected to the monitor via one HDMI cable as well, and in a split screen Tony could see both his heartbeat, and on another a black, empty zone. When Dr. Lazarus administered the shot Tony felt nothing, but within less than a minute he was deep in a trance, his mind exploring the vastness of space. The blank half of the monitor began to display Tony’s mental journey. Stars flew by him in a blur, planets spun wildly in their celestial orbit, and Tony’s mind blew past them at lightning speed. Like a super hero he blasted through black holes, and gaseous multicolored clouds, and spectators could see him passing through unseen galaxies, until he approached a large blue planet orbiting twin suns far, far from home. Tony focused on the blue planet and began to drift toward it, and then through the atmosphere like a bird. Below him were sparkling blue-green waters, lush forests, and mountains so large he had never seen their like. Then, he saw people moving about across a grassy plain and got closer. There were three of them and they looked like werewolves from a horror movie. These beings were at least nine feet tall, garbed in leather armor, and carried an assortment of medieval weapons. One of them wielded a crossbow, and another a two-handed sword that must have been four feet long. The third was wearing an ornate robe and strapped across his back was a long wooden staff with an odd looking animal skull stuck on top. The skulls eye sockets were adorned with maroon gem inlays, giving it a demonic and menacing appearance. Tony was so close now that he could see the whiskers on their maws.

  The robed figure paused, held up his hand and the other two stopped, sniffing the air for trouble.

  “Gregor, what is it? Centaurs?” One asked.

  “No Dante, I believe the prophecy is about to be fulfilled. Humans are coming to Eritria. We should prepare for war.” Gregor said.

  Tony was whisked away back through space and into his body once more. His head felt like a freight train had gone through the back of it and had slammed into his frontal lobe. On the monitor was a map of several solar systems and in the top right corner was the blinking blue dot where Tony had just been in his mind.

  “We’ve found it! Thanks to your ability to withstand the drug. Unfortunately, Mr. Davis, your brain is in the process of becoming Swiss cheese, and you won’t be around to see us colonize your discovery.”

  Tony passed out without another word. Later on that day another barrel was filled with a reddish brown gelatinous liquid that had been Tony Davis. The drug was a success and now mankind could map the new star system using the power of test subject’s minds.

  “Gwen, call the Colonel and let him know.” Dr. Lazarus said.

  Across the industrial complex was a hangar and inside, hidden from prying eyes was a fleet of miraculous hovering disk shaped spacecraft. The Deep Space Exploration Consortium, DSEC, had funded research and development of these wonders, after recovering several downed alien craft and reverse engineering their technology in the nineteen fifties. The planet Earth was falling into decay, and although life could return to habitable conditions it would take another millennia to do so after man’s destructive influence. The industrial revolution was over, but humanity would still pay a high price for the ignorance of their ancestors. So, with the help of earth’s greatest minds, and the richest business men and women, a plan was formed to find another habitable planet to colonize. Only the elite, and other select people from earth would be invited for the trip, and all those deemed unworthy would be left behind to deal with the coming tide.

  The elite’s saving grace came one day when a mind control experiment had gone wrong and accidentally revealed the existence of an earth-like planet within range of the DSEC advanced space ships. Only that it existed was all DSEC had known until Tony Davis revealed the exact location with his mental journey through the cosmos. Now their plans for colonization could move forward. But, before thousands of people were transported across space, a scientific team was going to go ahead and scout the planet to ensure that the journey would be worth the price paid.

  Colonel Derrick Slaymore was just completing a test flight on one of these secret ships when he received Gwen’s call

  “Colonel Slaymore, we’ve found Planet Z. Whenever you’re ready with the mission team, we’ve got your coordinates.” Gwen said.

  “That’s excellent news! I’ll assemble them now and we can leave as early as a week from today. Thank you very much. I know our backers are going to be excited. You’ve done well.”

  The colonel hung up and turned toward the largest of his fleet, The Poseidon. As it hovered motionlessly above the hangar floor, he reveled in knowing that very soon he and his crew would leave Earth for the last time.

  … Find out what happens next in the trilogy, In The Company of Wolves.

  no rest for the wicked

  Two men, soldiers of the new era, are pinned down in a city gone mad. Getting back to base will prove challenging.

  Midsummer heat bore down on the destroyed metropolis, the buildings trapping in heat like a brick oven, sweltering all living creatures trapped within the concrete jungle. Miles from home, two soldiers had broken down on their way back from a routine food supply grab in the middle of a war zone.

  “How’d we get like this, Vic?” Tommy asked.

  Vic sat quietly with his back against the broken brick wall; both of them were exhausted from the day’s earlier skirmish with the loyalist army, what was left of it. He closed his tired eyes as sweat ran in rivulets down a dirt-streaked face while he attempted to think of
anything but Tommy’s question, and the hard day behind them.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Vic answered.

  Tommy had been a part of Vic’s crew for two months and was a child of the new age, born underground in a network of subterranean cities designed to ensure humanity’s survival after cataclysm. Exiled from his people for theft and vandalism, Tommy was sent to the surface with a few sticks of freeze-dried meat, a forty-caliber handgun and fifty rounds of ammunition. Never having had to survive above ground, the kid would have been killed in a matter of days if Skoal Dietrich, one of Vic’s lieutenants, hadn’t rescued him. Tommy had been picking through a pile of trash for food at dusk one evening when a few wandering mutant scavengers picked up his scent. Dietrich happened to be driving back to headquarters from a food scout mission when he saw the boy and took pity on him. When the mutants attacked there were hundreds hiding in wait for someone to stop and help the boy. It was a trap, and Dietrich rolled right into it. As a result, Dietrich and Tommy had barely made it out alive. As Tommy and Vic sat in silence Tommy admired the phoenix patch on Vic’s shoulder and tried to make out the phrase embroidered within it.

  “What’s on the patch? I mean, I know it’s a phoenix, but what’s the lettering? Looks like Latin.” Tommy asked.

  Vic popped an eye open and sighed.

  “Renascuntur per ignem. It means born again by fire, and you’ll get one once you’ve earned it. Maybe.”

  A mortar shell whistled loudly in the distance careening through the air like a degenerate bird, and slammed into a building several blocks away. The explosion rained chunks of brick and mortar all over the street littered with burned out hulks of long ago destroyed cars, and busses.

  “I get that, I was just making conversation, that’s all. So, what do I have to do to get one?” Tommy asked.

  “Look kid, you…” Vic began just as a sniper round struck Tommy in the abdomen.

  Tommy rolled over holding his side, howling in pain. Vic scrambled to his feet moving his injured partner to a more secure location just inside the building behind them. The structures in this part of town were so badly destroyed that the sniper’s location was obscured. Vic dragged Tommy around the corner, and radioed for the rest of their squad. He was kicking himself for having taken such a long break before the remaining walk back to headquarters. The two would have to walk a little over a mile to get home, and Vic hated having the team use fuel if there was no urgent reason, but now it looked like they were going to need the wrecker to come get them.

  “Red Robin, this is Blue Bird, over.” Vic said into his walkie-talkie.

  “Roger that, what’s your twenty?” came a scratchy voice.

  “We’re a little over a click from home, check the beacon. The kid’s taken a hit, and I’m in the process of dispatching a sniper. Requesting immediate evac.”

  A few moments of silence passed as Vic peered around the corner to try and locate their sniper, but the sun was going down and dusk obscured his view. He dreaded the thought of being pinned down and trapped out here at night. That was when the scavengers came out to hunt. Scavengers were mutants who had at one time been human, but prolonged exposure to laboratory-constructed viruses had changed their DNA in wild combinations from one generation to the next. They were more like monsters now. If you were unlucky enough to be outside as darkness descended, you could hear them scream and chatter to one another. The clicks and pops they uttered almost resembled language, but one only they could understand. Tommy was sitting up again, his right hand covering a rather large and spreading blossom of blood on his dirty brown T-shirt.

  “Well, crap!” Tommy barked. A crimson pool had formed by his hip, spreading out like a toppled ink well.“Hang in there kid, we’ve got help coming.” Vic said.

  He popped his head around the corner once more just in time to see a brick beside his head disintegrate in a shower of rocks. “Shit!” Vic whispered.

  Vic backed slow and low into the shadows. He could now see their enemy through the broken wall across a parking lot reloading in a window about five stories up. Vic was fairly certain he could get a clean shot off if he propped himself on a stack of wooden pallets sitting near the far wall. He got into position and looked through the scope to get a better view of his target, shaking his head in disgust. The sniper was a young kid no more than fifteen or sixteen, and now there was someone else in the window with him. A bigger, older man with a beard, wearing an olive drab sleeveless t-shirt. The older man was yelling at the younger one, and through his scope Vic could see the two arguing. The younger one looked scared and he was fumbling around with something out of view as the bearded man reached for him. Two for one, Vic thought. He centered his crosshairs, eased the trigger, and held his last breath just before…

  The kid fell out of view, and a second later the whole side of the building he and the bearded man had been in became a puff of white smoke as a blast caused the building to tumble to the ground. Grenade? C4? Vic wasn’t sure what they had been wrestling with, but it had worked.

  “What was that sound?” Tommy asked, gritting his teeth.

  “That was the sound of our sniper removing himself from the gene pool. He’ll be missed.” Vic grimaced.

  “Don’t make me laugh,” coughed Tommy. “This thing burns like Hell.”

  “Well, at the very least, I saved a bullet.” Vic smiled.

  It was getting darker now which was bad, but Vic could hear the welcoming rumble of their wrecker coming toward the locator beacon on his tactical vest. Vic heard a shrill scream far away and felt the chill of raw terror snake up his spine, like the hand of doom reaching out and touching him. Scavengers. Vic picked Tommy up in his arms like a groom about to carry his bride across the threshold, and ran outside to meet the approaching rescue vehicle. Vic could now clearly see the pretty face of Kelly Deschaine, and Rod Stevens through the windshield. The wrecker was a large diesel troop transport that had been fitted on the front with a triangular steel push about five feet long that sloped on each side. It was designed to move cars out of the way and made the truck look like a wingless bird.

  “Hang on, Tommy. The cavalry’s coming.”

  “Shit!” Tommy yelled.

  A mutant hiding behind a pile of rubble leapt from the top, wielding a large sword, in an attempt to topple Vic and Tommy. Tommy pulled his side arm and fired once between the mutant’s eyes, dropping it in the dust and rubble. A moment later he went limp in Vic’s arms. The truck pulled up to them as Vic ran with Tommy in his arms to the back of the vehicle where he placed him on the bed and climbed in after. Kelly joined them, frowning as she saw Tommy slipping in and out of consciousness. She had a small medical kit with her and ripped his shirt open as Rod turned the wrecker around to head back to HQ. Screams in the distance grew louder.

  “He needs a doctor, Vic,” said Kelly, shaking her head.

  She removed a plastic wrapped tampon from her kit after seeing the bullet wound, unwrapped it, and used some surgical tape to secure it inside the gash. This elicited a scream from Tommy who sat straight up in agony, sweating profusely. Vic grabbed his shoulders to calm him and laid Tommy back onto the floor of their vehicle.

  “It was a clean shot at least. It just tore a good chunk out of your side. The tampon ought to help contain some of the bleeding, Tommy. Stay with us, and do not go to sleep.”

  “It feels like someone jabbed a hot poker into my side,” he moaned.

  “Solvey was telling me there’s a doc being held by the Everlasting Fire cult, and he’s in a hospital a few blocks from here,” said Vic.

  “We would have to break the guy out of there, that’s if he’s even willing to go. Those guys are notorious brain washers, and I don’t think we have that kind of time. Tommy’s lost a lot of blood, and we need to get him fixed now!” Kelly replied.

  “You want to hear that story, kid?” Vic asked.

  Tommy had turned almost white with blood loss, and he was listless as the truck bumped and jolted do
wn the street, mowing through obstacles like a hot knife through butter.

  “Sure, why not?” he replied. His voice was faint.

  Tommy felt like Vic’s voice was coming over a PA system from somewhere outside the darkening room of his mind. He tried to keep his eyes open but it felt like there were fifty pound weights attached to his lids.

  “The deal is while I talk, you don’t go to sleep. Sound like a plan?” Vic asked.

  “Sure, sounds good,” Tommy whispered.

  Kelly shot Vic another concerned glance and shook her head slowly from side to side.

  “You wanted to know how this all started. Well, in 2025, the world economy had collapsed due to a pandemic of unemployment and lack of confidence in currency. People were separated by technology, financial class, and there were a bunch of other reasons,” he began.

  “So, one day the stock market crashes and people go nuts, and then the riots began. They were mostly in the cities first and worked their way into smaller communities. Soon, there was a very temporary nationwide police state attempted, until a group of eco-terrorists attacked the CDC in Atlanta, which released every doomsday pathogen known to man into the public at large. Before authorities had realized what was happening and shut the airports down, viruses spread like a wildfire through air travel. The sickness reduced our population by billions, and a lot of people were genetically altered in the fracas.”

  Kelly had been rummaging around in the back of the truck looking for something as Vic spoke.

  “Ah ha!” She cried.

  Kelly had located a propane blowtorch, and a metal rod used to reinforce concrete.

  “I don’t want to interrupt this uplifting tale, but in the absence of a doctor you need to have that wound cauterized. Tommy’s still going to need a blood transfusion, Vic, but this should stop the bleeding,” Kelly smiled.

  Tommy winced at the thought, but said nothing

  “Kid, before she goes to work I think you earned one of these today. Thanks for taking care of that mutant.”