World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2)

by Harold Bloemer

I focus back on the task at hand and tilt my head to the left, sending the mosquito zooming toward the other tower. The mosquito lands on the forehead of the second guard, who is still in the process of ‘rubbing one out’ to a raunchy holographic porno, and unleashes another barrage of electricity. The guard slumps to the ground with his dick still in his hand.

  “Damn, he has a huge penis,” Krystal says, still munching on her chips while gawking at the half-naked guard through her visor.

  “He’s not that big,” Lance says sourly.

  “Um, okay,” I say, lifting my visor so I no longer have to stare at the guard’s weiner.

  Krystal turns to me and blurts out, “So are we ever gonna storm the ship, or we just gonna keep on sitting here flapping our gums?”

  “I’m tired of hearing you all bitching at each other,” Grenade growls, still holding his blinking smoke grenade. “Let’s go kill some people!”

  “Let’s try and keep the bloodshed to a minimum,” I say with a scowl.

  “Hold up. Why we even gonna waste our time beating up those fools down in the Jacuzzi?” Krystal asks. “Why not just let that feisty little mosquito take care of em?”

  “The mosquito wouldn’t be able to take all those ‘fools’ out at once,” I explain, checking my gun to make sure there are enough bullets in the ammunition cartridge. (There are.) “We need to incapacitate everyone simultaneously so no one sounds the alarm.”

  Krystal cracks her knuckles and grins. “Works for me. I’m feelin’ a little violent.”

  Lance looks up from the tendrils of electricity dancing across his gloved fingertips (that seems to be his favorite way of entertaining himself nowadays) and says, “Why are we even trying to invade this ship in the first place? If you already know where Blackbird’s room is, why not just fly up to his balcony window and drag his fat ass out? That’s how we snuck into Pocahontas’ room.”

  I can’t help but cringe at the mere mention of Pocahontas’ name. The things we did to get that poor girl to talk.

  “That won’t work. Blackbird is in a windowless room. We have to go in the hard way.”

  Lance groans. “We always have to do things the hard way.”

  Krystal grabs the controls and flies us toward the ship. The jet’s various stealth mechanisms keep us from being seen. If it were pitch-black out, it wouldn’t even matter if our plane were visible. But the sun is up 24 straight hours this time of the year. That’s why all the windows in the cruise ship are draped with obsidian curtains, to block out the perpetual sunlight and allow people to get some semblance of a good night’s sleep.

  As we fly overtop the ship’s upper deck, I get a better glimpse of our prospective targets. There are four burly looking dudes in the Jacuzzi, sipping beer and vodka and ogling their three incredibly attractive female companions. The dudes have excessively hairy chests while the women all have humongous boobs that are practically spilling out of their way-too-tight bras. There are also several handguns and rifles within reaching distance of the men. The group of ‘holiday revelers’ are so wasted that they don’t even realize they have company until our whipping propellers cause the water in the Jacuzzi to start rippling.

  One of the drunken idiots gazes up at the bottom of our hovering jet. This close up, our jet’s reflective mirrors are unable to distort light to the point that we appear invisible. The inebriated moron points at us and starts to shout, “Holy shit, we’re under att---”

  The dumbass never finishes his sentence because Grenade opens the hatch door and tosses his blinking sphere onto the deck. The sphere bursts open on impact and immediately starts spewing a dark-gray cloud of highly concentrated knock-out gas.

  Everyone in the Jacuzzi starts gasping for air. Several of the goons are able to climb out of the hot tub before they’re swallowed up by the dark cloud of gas. Some of the gas billows up toward us, sucked in by our whipping propellers.

  “Krystal, take us another 500 feet into the air,” Grenade barks, covering his mouth as some of the gas starts filtering into the cockpit.

  Krystal yanks on the controls and we zoom higher up into the sky, just out of reach of the enervating vapor. It takes about a minute for all the gas to dissipate. Once it does, Krystal lowers us down to the deck and turns off the jet.

  Grenade turns to Krystal and gruffly says, “Stay here and be ready to take off at a moment’s notice. Boom Boom, Lance and I will go secure the target.”

  Krystal gives a sardonic salute and says, “Aye aye, captain.”

  Grenade glances at me and Lance and growls, “Let’s roll.”

  Lance and I follow Grenade and hop out of the hatch door. The three of us rush over to check on the unconscious bodies littering the deck. Grenade reaches into the Jacuzzi and pulls out a man and a woman who were unable to get out before the gas knocked them unconscious. He tosses them onto the deck and kneels down to check their pulses.

  Grenade looks up at me and grunts, “They’re alive.”

  My lips unwillingly curl into a smile. “That’s good,” I say softly. “That’s real good.”

  Out of the corner of my eyes I notice one of the seemingly unconscious goons raise his head and point a gun at Lance.

  “Lance, look out!”

  In the time it takes me to shout those words, Grenade dashes over to the goon faster than a man half his age and swings his gleaming metallic arm directly toward the gunman’s forehead. The cyborg arm slams into the goon’s head, caving his skull in and exposing portions of his brain.

  Grenade lifts his blood-splattered fist and scowls. “Son of a bitch, I just polished this hand yesterday.”

  I look over at Lance, who appears to be as shell-shocked as I am. While we’re definitely used to seeing people shot and stabbed, we’re not used to people having their skulls pulverized by cyborg fists.

  Grenade looks over at us and narrows his eerie red eyes. “Oh for Christ sake, don’t tell me you’re pissed that I killed a man who was about to shoot us. The jackass must have held his breath until the gas dissipated. We’re lucky one of us wasn’t shot in the head.”

  “No, we’re thankful you killed the asshole,” I say. “We just think it’s kinda gross the way you did it.”

  “Dying isn’t supposed to be pretty,” Grenade growls. “Now check the rest of these yahoos and make sure they’re not playing opossum.”

  While Lance and I kick and punch the rest of Blackbird’s Jacuzzi-loving goons to ensure they’re fully incapacitated, Grenade dashes around the entire deck, placing blinking explosives on all of the flying cars and helicopters. The explosives are black spheres, just like the gas grenade he detonated moments before, and they have adhesive backs that allow them to stick to surfaces.

  “Um, why are you doing that?” I ask Grenade as he makes his way back over to us.

  “Consider it an insurance policy,” Grenade says with a wicked grin. “If the shit hits the fan and things go wrong, I can blow this entire ship to kingdom-come.”

  “And kill countless hundreds?” I say incredulously.

  “If it ends up saving our lives, yeah,” Grenade snaps. “Better that a few hundred die now than hundreds of millions die because China and America decide to lob nuclear warheads at each other.”

  Grenade and I are about to delve into a shouting match when Lance steps in between us and says, “Guys, we don’t have time for this. Let’s get who we came for and get the fuck out of here.”

  Grenade growls and marches toward the far end of the deck. I give Lance a dirty look as he follows him. I reluctantly bring up the rear, cautiously stepping over empty beer bottles and pieces of garbage strewn all over the deck. Powerful heaters keep the temperature quite toasty, to the point that I’m seriously considering taking off my coat. Several brightly-lit Christmas trees are situated along the edge of the ship, and blinking lights are wrapped around the railings. It’s rather peculiar to see so much ‘Christmas cheer’ on a floating airship overflowing with murders, gangbangers, and terrorists. The faint sound
of Christmas music emanating from the ship’s speakers only adds to the lunacy of our bizarre setting.

  “Do I really hear Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer?” Lance asks with a smirk

  I can’t help but laugh. “At least it’s not Oh Holy Night. That would be a bit much.”

  “Glad you all are having fun,” Grenade growls, swinging his massive machine gun back and forth as his all-seeing robotic eyes search for hidden snipers. “Now if you’re done singing Christmas carols, shut up and let’s get a move on.”

  “What a kill-joy,” Lance grumbles as we follow Grenade down a stairwell.

  As we descend down the carpeted stairs, our mosquito zooms past our heads and hurtles toward Blackbird’s room on the third floor of the six-story ship. I’m telepathically sending the mosquito ahead so it can alert us to any hidden dangers. I’m relieved when the mosquito reaches Blackbird’s secluded room without coming across any insomniacs out for a nighttime stroll. Maybe this mission will be a piece of cake after all.

  When we reach the third floor, we hop out of the stairwell and rush down the narrow hallway, zig-zagging around vases filled with flowers and aquariums filled with exotic fish. I glance at the room numbers plastered on the doors as we dash past them. Blackbird is in room 330, and we just ran past room 322. My heart starts beating like crazy and my palms begin to sweat. I’ve been on more dangerous missions than I care to remember, but for some reason this mission has me incredibly nervous. I guess there’s something about kidnapping the richest man on Earth that gets your blood pumping

  The door to room 326 opens just as we’re about to pass it. One of Blackbird’s nameless goons staggers out wearing nothing but boxer shorts. He squints at us as we skid to a halt right in front of him. He looks to be completely wasted.

  “Who the fuck are you guys?” the drunk slurs.

  “Your worst nightmare,” Grenade growls before punching the goon in the face with his cyborg hand. The goon spins around in a complete circle before collapsing into a motionless heap. Blood pools underneath his head.

  “Jesus Christ, Grenade, you about took that guy’s head off,” Lance says, sidestepping the puddle of blood. “You couldn’t use your non-metal hand?”

  “I didn’t want to break a nail,” Grenade replies, deadpan.

  A few steps later and we find ourselves in front of Blackbird’s room. Lance tries to turn the doorknob, but it doesn’t budge.

  “Damn, it’s locked,” he bemoans.

  I point at a holographic keypad on the wall next to the door. “Double damn, it's password protected.

  Grenade flexes his robotic arm. “No problem, I’ll just tear the door off its hinges.”

  Grenade reaches for the door, but I block his path.

  “Don’t you think that’s going to be a little loud?” I ask.

  Grenade scowls. “We don’t have time to try 50,000 password combinations. This is our quickest option.”

  “No necessarily,” I say, telepathically summoning our robotic mosquito. It flies out from beneath the door and hovers above my head, awaiting my mental commands. “I uploaded this mosquito with about $10,000 worth of state-of-the-art hacker programs. It’ll be able to disable the keypad faster than you can say Dixie.”

  “Dixie,” Grenade says.

  I give Grenade the middle finger while our mosquito zooms over to the keypad and shines a red light over the numbers. About two seconds later, the keypad vanishes and the door pops open.

  “Well slap my ass and call me Shirley,” Grenade says, legitimately flabbergasted. He’s always surprised when brains win out over brawn.

  “Whatever floats your boat, Shirley,” I crack. Grenade chuckles as he follows me and Lance into the dark room.

  For the most part we’re pretty quiet, save for the soft clanging noise of our various weapons swinging from our utility belts and banging against our body armor. I make my way over to the king-sized bed in the middle of the room. The mosquito continues to buzz around beside my left arm. I reflexively swat at it before remembering how much money I spent on the damn thing. That would be my luck, inadvertently breaking something I spent a shit-load of money on.

  As we get closer I notice a half-empty bottle of vodka on the nightstand beside Blackbird’s bed. Hopefully he’s so inebriated that he won’t put up much of a struggle when we grab him.

  Blackbird is sprawled out on his back, his right arm and leg dangling off the side of the bed. His massive, hairy pot-belly looms over his prone body like a quivering volcano, moving up and down in conjunction with his voluminous snores. Blackbird’s long, charcoal-gray hair partially obscures his ruddy-red face. He’s wearing an open Hawaiian shirt (hence the reason his morbidly obese stomach is visible) and a way-too-skimpy red thong. Emblazoned in the center of the thong, right over his crotch, is the image of a mistletoe. Lance snorts, struggling to contain his laughter.

  As we make our way ever-closer to our slumbering target, the young woman beside him comes into view. The woman appears to be in her early 20s, and she really is quite stunning. Her long, blonde hair shines luminously under the soft light filtering in from the hallway. Her nude body is toned and lithe, and she has plump, perky breasts that could either be the result of hitting the genetic lottery, or the work of a skilled plastic surgeon. I turn to find Grenade and Lance taking a keen interest in her. Boys will be boys, I suppose.

  Speaking as quietly as I can while still being heard, I say, “So what should we do? Carry him out?”

  Grenade makes his way over and looks down at Blackbird. His glowing red eyes appear even freakier than usual in the darkened, windowless room.

  After a few seconds of contemplation, Grenade replies, “I just did a quick scan of his brain and he appears to be completely unconscious.”

  Grenade lifts the half-empty bottle of vodka to his lips and takes a swill before adding, “Too much of the clear stuff will do that to ya. Anyway, I bet I can carry his fat ass to the ship without him so much as fluttering open his eyelids.”

  Grenade bends down, wraps his arms around Blackbird’s wide waist, and starts the process of hoisting him up onto his shoulders. I stand behind Grenade and put my hands up, in case Blackbird starts to slip. That turns out to be an idiotic move, because Blackbird suddenly opens his mouth and spews vomit all over my coat. Grenade drops him back onto the bed, causing it to creak under the massive amount of weight.

  “Eww, gross!” I exclaim, tearing off my vomit-drenched coat and tossing it onto the floor. My anger becomes exacerbated when Lance starts laughing.

  “It’s not fucking funny,” I snap. I focus my wrath on Grenade and say, “I thought you did a scan of his brain with your freaky eyes and said he was unconscious!”

  “Hey, unconscious people vomit. Haven’t you ever heard of drug addicts suffocating on their own throw-up while they’re sleeping? I can’t control his bodily functions.”

  I point at Blackbird and retort, “Yeah, but he’s not unconscious! Look!”

  Grenade and Lance turn to find Blackbird lifting himself up off his bed with one hand while clutching his head with the other. The moans and groans escaping his lips allude to an excruciating hang-over.

  Grenade shrugs. “Well my cyborg eyes ain’t what they used to be. I guess I was mistaken.”

  Blackbird finally looks up. Peering at us through his bleary, blood-shot eyes, he garbles, “Wh… who are you people? What are you doing in my ro…”

  Blackbird trails off as comprehension begins to dawn on his cloudy mind. His red cheeks turn pale and his eyes widen in a combination of terror and outrage.

  “Holy shit, are you here to kill me?! HELP!! SOMEBODY HEL---ARGGGH!!”

  Grenade punches Blackbird in the face with his metallic hand. Blackbird’s head snaps back and hits the wall. His eyes glaze over and his head tilts to the side. Blood oozes out of his gaping mouth.

  “What the hell are you doing slugging him with your cyborg arm?” I say in a scathing whisper. “We need him alive, not brain-dead.”
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  I brush past Grenade and touch Blackbird’s flabby neck with my fingers. I breathe a sigh of relief when I detect a pulse.

  “I pulled my punch at the last second,” Grenade growls, grabbing Blackbird by his fat, flabby ankles and yanking him off the bed. The billionaire tycoon’s massive, 300-plus pound body slams onto the floor and shakes the entire room.

  “Quit being so damn loud,” I say in a scathing whisper.

  Grenade responds with another scowl and starts dragging Blackbird’s limp body toward the door. I snap my fingers at Lance, who is preoccupied staring at Blackbird’s naked mistress.

  “I’m coming,” Lance says, reluctantly taking his eyes off the woman and following us out of the room.

  Just as we step out into the hallway, a bloodcurdling scream rings out from behind us. We all spin around to find Blackbird’s mistress sitting up in bed, staring at us in horror and shrieking like a banshee.