by Jesse Wilson
“Maybe not cool, but it is true,” he said as he rubbed his arm to make the pain go away a little faster.
Bob did have a point. Everything around them seemed to be on a downward spiral, and the destruction of one of America’s biggest and most popular cities was destined to not have a good impact on the rest of the nation, no matter where anyone lived.
The bullet tore through his left shoulder just before the group of agents pushed him out of the way and out of sight.
“I’m fine, damn it, get off of me,” he said and tried to push the agents off. “How in the hell did a gun get past you people? Really? Whoever is responsible for checking for guns at the gate is losing his job tonight,” Tim cried out, angry and bleeding.
The paramedics were immediately rushed in and appeared to swarm everywhere in the room. In a blur of action, before the president knew what was going on, he was on a stretcher immediately. The fury of being shot was overcoming any amount of pain he was feeling.
“I’m fine. Patch me up and give me a phone, now,” he screamed and was barely able to be understood.
“We need to give you something for the pain; you’re not thinking clearly,” one of the doctors said and the president glared at all of them.
“No, no drugs, I need a phone, now,” he yelled out as they cut his blood-soaked jacket off. One of the secret agents pulled out a phone and handed it to him right away. He dialed a number and put the phone to his head as Jim stepped inside the room behind all the chaos. He stood just outside the room, straining to listen to what he was going to say.
“This is General Benton, sir, how may I be of assistance,” the general said into the phone.
“There’s been a change of plan with the Vegas operation. Anyone who hasn’t been evacuated and lived through the first phase of the plan is to be exterminated. Anyone alive could be infected and we can’t take the chance,” Tim said through the pain and the noise, and there was just silence on the other end of the phone.
“Do you understand me?” the president said again, and it seemed to shake the general out of the daze he was in.
“Yes sir, I’ll get it done,” he said and the president, in his rage and pain, threw the phone into the floor, breaking it into pieces.
“Tim, what the hell are you thinking? You literally just ordered the deaths of potentially hundreds of American people. Are you insane?” Jim said, calling him out on his order.
“Insane, no, just being careful; one can never be too careful, can they?” Tim replied to him and smiled. Someone had just shot at him who had relatives in Vegas; with any luck, the fire didn’t get them. The president wanted revenge, and being shot at changes a man.
“That reporter shot at the wrong man. If his family didn’t die in the fire, I’ll make sure they get killed one way or another,” the president said, and those words sent chills down Jim’s spine when he heard them said like that.
Right now wasn’t a good time to talk to the president, so Jim just stood up and started to walk away.
“What, are you going to tell me you don’t agree with doing everything we can to make sure the infection doesn’t escape Las Vegas?” the president asked him.
“I don’t agree with your actions, no. I understand why you decided to do this, but it has nothing to do with national security,” Jim said and walked out of the room.
The president just narrowed his eyes and smiled. Despite the ringing still in his ears, he was perfectly content with ordering the potential deaths of thousands of civilians. The people treating his gunshot didn’t seem to care one way or another right now; likely, they didn’t even pay attention to what was said, at least not yet.
***
General Benton was hung up on as he and a battalion moved up the road towards what used to be Las Vegas. He couldn’t believe what he had been ordered to do. He was unaware of the assassination attempt or anything else that was going on. A man sitting beside him in the transport noticed the look on the normally steel-eyed leader change.
“What is it? What are the orders?” he asked him.
“President says we have to kill anyone we find in city limits, infected or not,” he replied and felt sick even thinking about it.
“Sir, we can’t do that. That’s straight-up murder. It’s bad enough we had to destroy the whole city, but this is just too much,” he replied and couldn’t imagine killing someone who had managed to live through the destruction of the city.
“This doesn’t leave these walls. The orders are the same: this is a rescue mission. Kill any infected we find and save the rest,” Benton replied and knew he just committed treason, potentially against the whole human race, but it was worth it because there was no reason to kill people if they didn’t need to die.
Suddenly, the radio in the transport came to life.
“Lars, come in. I know you can hear me,” Bruce’s voice came over the radio. Benton sighed and answered the radio.
“What do you want, Williams? I know this is usually your deal, but we’re dealing with bigger things, so be quick,” Lars Benton replied to him, but tried not to be annoyed.
“Yeah, I missed you too. Listen. The infection has spread past Vegas. It’s in Goldfield and heading towards Ashwind. I just alerted the west coast units of the threat, but I thought I would tell you that this infection can hide itself,” Bruce said and those words chilled him to the bone.
“Hide, what do you mean by hide?” Benton asked him a second later.
“I mean it can pull itself into a recession, and whoever is infected by it will not even know they are infected. This is impossible to detect, however, my friend here says that pure ultraviolet radiation will light up the infection through the blood when it shines on them. I’ve got a unit that will meet you at your destination to supply you with what you need to tell who’s clean and who isn’t,” Bruce replied to him and Benton rolled his eyes.
“Are you kidding me? Well, thanks for the assist, but what are we going to do about the outbreak?” Lars asked him.
“I think I have, uh, communication with the source of the infection. We’re going to talk to it to see what it wants, but I think we have a kind of a truce until we get there. I’m not sure though so once you get to Vegas, make sure every man in your unit gets a UV light and go to work. Save as many as you can,” Bruce said to him.
“Copy that. Good luck with your peace talks. So, who’s going to tell the president about this?” Lars asked him, almost nervously.
“Screw the president. Since when have I ever involved him in anything I did before? I can handle this. I can’t believe he hasn’t issued an extermination order to you yet. If he does, just smile and nod. We’ll deal with the fallout later,” Bruce replied to him.
Lars, a career military man, couldn’t believe that for the first time not only was he going to go against orders, he was going to keep them a secret from the president about all of the rest of what was going on.
“You got it, I’ll keep quiet. Good luck in Ashwind. Over and out,” Lars replied to him and couldn’t believe just how weird things have gotten anymore as he put the radio down.
“Was that actually Williams? As in the Dreamland General?” the man beside Lars asked him.
“No. You never heard anything and you keep it to yourself. Dreamland isn’t even a place anymore,” Lars replied to him and that steel-eyed look returned. Now, it was clear what needed to be done. The man beside him shifted uncomfortably and just accepted what had just taken place; he would do his best to forget the conversation ever happened at all.
Bruce put the radio down. “Thanks for the intel, lizard. We needed that; you just saved hundreds of lives,” he said to Xule.
“My name is Xule, you know. I have one. It’s not lizard or scaly, or anything else. Just Xule, but you’re welcome. No one from a hunting trip on Yola got off the planet without a scan. It’s saved us lots of times,” he said but was getting annoyed about how long this trip was taking over all.
“We’re there,�
� Bruce said before the truck began to come to a stop. Bruce opened the back door and got out.
“What? This isn’t the town,” Bruce said as he looked in front of the truck to see a white van blocking the road and narrowed his eyes, adjusting to the morning light.
“Yeah, this isn’t a trap or anything,” he said to himself as a woman got out of the driver’s seat. She was clearly infected, it was easy to see in here.
“Xule, we have an infected; stay in the truck. I’m going to go say hello to it and see what it wants,” Bruce said and felt his arm ache at the thought of seeing this again.
“Why are you blocking our way? Let us pass,” Bruce said but didn’t want to get too close to this thing.
“You may pass, we are your escorts to town. No tricks or surprises from you. Get back in your truck and follow us,” she said in a hideous voice that made him cringe.
“You heard her, driver. Follow them,” Bruce said to the driver, and the nervous man just nodded in agreement. Bruce turned his back on the infected lady and walked back toward door. He expected to be jumped at any moment, but it never happened.
He got back in and shut the door, breathing a sigh of relief.
“They want to provide us escort, I guess,” Bruce said to Xule, and he was just as confused as Bruce was. He’d never seen the monster act like this before, and it was all new to him as well. The truck started to move again at a much slower pace.
“This is a bad idea; we shouldn’t trust it. Get your ice ray people here, and let’s blast every infected person we can find. This thing has never done anything good for anyone. I don’t like this,” Xule said. He was becoming nervous and going into where the consciousness of Narbosaurus had decided to call home just felt wrong.
“We don’t have a choice. We need to see what it wants. Maybe we can tell it the Garbozia thing is coming and it will want to shape up?” Bruce said and Xule winced.
“Garmonbozia, you mean. And I doubt it. The monster is almost perfectly immortal. It has nothing to fear from the weapon, and eventually, some other race will come to this planet to be its ticket back out to space. Thinking it’ll help is insane. We’re the only ones in danger here,” Xule replied to him. The thought of that thing coming to this planet, a planet he was on no less, terrified him.
He didn’t want to die yet, and after having been through so much, he felt it was a bad thing to die like that. Bruce narrowed his eyes.
“I’m not so sure it’s all that simple, Xule. I think the fact it wants to talk to us is a mildly positive sign. We can only hope for the best,” he said, and at this point, he was tired of all the bad things that just didn’t stop coming.
The truck only drove for fifteen minutes more before it came to another stop.
“We must be here now. Let’s say hello to some new friends,” Bruce said and opened the door. The warm air rushed in again and he got out of the truck. Xule followed him close behind, and the people of Ashwind didn’t react as strongly as they might have if they hadn’t seen what happened to Terra a few hours before.
“Welcome to my town, friends. I am glad to see you’re still alive and figured out where I was, Bruce,” Terra said walking up to them. The crowd separated as she walked up in fear. Xule and Terra exchanged glances, but he wasn’t the one she wanted to talk too right now.
“It wasn’t hard figuring out where you were, Narbosaurus; you called us here, so what do you want?” Bruce got right to the point.
“I want my body back. Plain and simple,” she said and smiled.
“That’s not going to happen. We beat you and you’re done; soon, we’ll have a unit here to take care of you and all of your minions. This invasion is over,” Bruce said and Terra just smiled.
“It’s barely begun. I’ve been spreading my minions, as you called them, out from the other town; however, I have an offer you might want to consider,” she said and kept that smile the whole time.
“Enough with the games. Just tell us,” Bruce replied to her, impatient with this thing already.
“Simple, you give my body back, I will find a nice quiet place to live on this planet, and I’ll free all the infected people who are still alive. You’ve got nothing to lose,” Terra said to them, but the smile faded.
“Why would you do this? What reason do I have to even consider this?” Bruce asked her.
“No reason, I just don’t like being separated from my body, and I like this planet enough not to consume it. It’s all I have for a reason,” she responded. Bruce shook his head.
“No deal. I can’t trust you and we have you on the run,” Bruce replied to her.
Xule took a large step back. Saying no to a monster like this usually had a bad reaction.
“No, you can’t say no. My son is infected. He’s barely a year old and he’s out there all alone, and I can’t leave him alone anymore. You need to get him back!” Madison screamed all in one breath.
Bruce looked at her, but he wasn’t touched by the tragic story. There were literally thousands dead already, and every one of them was related to someone. This monster didn’t deserve to get off so easy and he knew it.
“Listen, I know how you feel. But this thing can’t be trusted. I am sorry, but the answer is still no,” he said and never took his eyes off of Terra. Xule rested his hand on his blaster, sensing things were going to go bad any minute.
“That sucks that you couldn’t agree. We could have ended this whole ordeal in five minutes,” Terra said and her yellow eyes appeared to get darker. Xule felt it before anyone else did.
“Wait, stop. I know you’re not happy, but you need to listen to me,” Xule said in perfect English, and this shocked more of the townspeople than his appearance. She turned to look at him and glared.
“What is it, Nuridian?” she hissed, and Bruce was hoping the rest of the unit would show up any minute like he planned.
“Garmonbozia is coming here because one of the old probes detected your DNA. I know you’ve taken enough of my kind to know what that means.” Xule was gambling here. The chances that Narbosaurus would care could go either way.
Terra crossed her arms. “I was sure they were all deactivated by now, so you’re sure? You’re not just lying to buy some time, right?” she asked him and Xule lifted Sippy up.
“Show her we’re not messing around here,” he said to Sippy, and she did just that by forming a hologram map of the approximate location of the probe.
“I don’t lie, monster,” Sippy said and continued. “I wouldn’t even know how to, I am a machine,” she finished. This didn’t mean anything to anyone watching.
“What this means, people, is that your whole world is doomed. These alien geniuses built themselves a weapon that they couldn’t even officially turn off. So much for advanced races, am I right?” she said to them and a murmur began to rise in the crowd.
“It’ll be here in less than a month. Spread the word, because it doesn’t matter what I do anymore, you’re all going to die,” she said and started laughing at this turn of events. Xule was still nervous; he didn’t know what was going to happen next. It was about then the early morning sky came to life with the sound of helicopters.
The Chemical Dragon Unit had arrived. Xule pulled his blaster and shot at Terra. She was fast enough to move out of the way, and his red beam slammed into a person who was standing behind her. She was instantly incinerated by the beam and fell into ashes.
“Snozbucket,” Xule said and turned to look to see where his target had gone.
“Face it, you’re not getting your body back. Even if that weapon shows up, I’ll make sure to have my boys hide it somewhere else where it won’t ever be found,” Bruce said as he pulled his sidearm, not entirely sure how he could accomplish that.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
All of the people of the town had started running away when Xule fired, so it was hard to find Terra in the mess with as fast as she could move.
“You could have just said yes,” Madison said as Janine an
d Randall made their way closer to the army truck to avoid the chaos.
“Madam, we don’t negotiate with terrorists, alien, human, or otherwise. This situation is no different,” Bruce said as he looked around, wondering why this infectious alien wasn’t infecting anyone.
“Now get in the back of the truck and stay there until it’s safe,” Bruce said as black ropes came down from the helicopters. Men in black uniforms that covered all of their bodies followed them down.
“Ultraviolet light shows the infection. Spread out and find it. Target is female, wearing green robes; consider her extremely dangerous. Don’t let her touch you,” Bruce said to the man closest to him and he just nodded. He disconnected his strange weapon that came from the back connected to the pack with a black hose and started to march forward into the chaos with the rest of them.
Madison and the others had no idea what any of this was, and the three of them felt like they stepped into the second act of some kind of strange movie. Bruce looked back to them and shook his head. “What the hell are you three still doing out here? Get in the back of the truck and stay there,” he screamed at them and they snapped out of their daze.
“You got it, yeah,” Randall finally said and they finally made their way back there.
“Like I said, Narbosaurus can transfer its personality into any infected it chooses, but that infected one will gain all a good share of its physical powers, so be careful,” Xule said to Bruce but never took his eyes off the chaos. He quickly looked from person to person to see if there were ever any signs of infection anywhere, but he didn’t see any.
“However, if we can trap its consciousness in the body it chooses, the threat will be over. This one anyway,” Xule said and saw a chance to finish this.
“Great. Why didn’t it kill us already? This seems like a waste of time,” Bruce asked him and didn’t understand what was going on. Xule did, all too well.
“It’s a hunter. It likes to cause panic, fear; and then it kills you. Sometimes on Yola, it would do stuff like this and pick off squads one at a time. It wants to be chased; otherwise, it’s just no fun,” Xule replied as the wind blew the pile of ashes that was once a person away.
