by Alan Spencer
Space Sharks
Alan Spencer
Copyright 2015 by Alan Spencer
Super Suck 3000
The beach was cleared of citizens to allow over ninety semi-trucks to pump water from the Gulf of Mexico. Otis Spooner was one of the many workers hired by Globo Corps to transport the precious resource to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. God knows why the space center needed hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, Otis thought. He didn't care. As long as Globo Corps was signing his paychecks, they could ask for anything their mega-rich conglomerate asses wanted.
Otis positioned the sucker tube twelve feet out from the shoreline. While steadying it into the water, he kept hearing odd sounds over the motor's mean churn. Things were banging against the walls of the tube on the way up.
Big heavy things.
Definitely not water.
Suck.
Phuuuuuuump!
Suck.
Phuuuuuuump!
Otis didn't worry about it. The engine worked with so much pressure and power, it could unclog any mess. But the pipes were sure sucking up something heavy, Otis thought. It could've been trash, parts of wrecked boats, or even the local aquatic life.
No matter. His instructions were simply to fill the rig's reservoir with water. That was it. Globo had a hard on for water, and when the richest juggernaut in the universe wanted something, they got it ASAP.
Phuuuuuuump!
Phuuuuuuump!
Phuuuuuuump!
Phuuuuuuump!
"How many times is that going to happen? Seriously."
Otis worried if he would somehow get into trouble for sucking up more than just water. Orders were orders, but if the shit went down, he didn't want his head on the chopping block. Globo Corps didn't mess around when it came to firing people.
Otis called the site manager, Jim Coogan, on his cell phone.
Jim was more than annoyed by the call.
"Yeah, Spooner? I'm very busy. You get your dick stuck in that thing again? You want someone to help you get it out before it gets ripped off?"
"Um, no, not that, sir," Otis said, fumbling over his words. "I keep sucking up objects into the tank. I'm worried it might break the machine."
"And?"
"And, I mean, well, you know, I'm just saying—is this going to be a problem? What if there's something that doesn't belong in the tanks when it reaches its destination? I don't want my butt chewed off. Know what I mean? It's been chewed off over less."
Otis wondered if every other pump operator was dialing in the same question to Coogan.
Jim's gruff was answer enough.
"Just get it done, Spooner. This is a time sensitive project. You let the bozos down at Globo Corps' main office worry about what else we suck up. Your job is to fill your rig up with water, and get it down to Houston. How difficult is that? We weren't told to filter the water. That's some other asshole's problem. So suck to your heart's content, and don't call me again unless you have a real problem."
Otis swallowed hard. "Thanks, sir."
Fuck you, Coogan. You always got that look about you like someone smeared a line of shit under your nose. That damn sneer. I could cut it from your face, and there'd still be some attitude showing.
Otis kept pumping water, and indulging in a few rants of colorful cussing.
Every few minutes, he'd heard the inevitable: Phuuuuuuump!
If Jim Coogan didn't care that the water was harboring random things, and if Globo Corps wasn't sweating it, then Otis Spooner of all people wouldn't give a wet fart about it.
Nobody would know that a wide variety of sharks had snuck into the payload until it was much too late. Soon, few would be alive to learn about the error anyway.
Part One: End of the Planet
We're Going to Burn
Ram Rogan was jolted awake by the rush of broken glass and the colorful burst of hot flames blasting into his bedroom. His curtains were nothing but fluttering particles of ash by the time his eyes sprang open. The walls were being chewed through by hot flames. Everywhere, fire!
The recent warnings in the news were correct. The world would soon be on fire, and absolutely nothing could quell the flames. The pollution crisis had reached critical mass. The atmosphere had turned toxic. The earth had a reset button, and it had been pressed hard. Temperatures beneath the earth's crusts were steadily rising. Scholars and naturalists alike predicted the earth would turn against its inhabitants anytime now. Nobody knew it would be an overnight transition from safe to fiery abyss.
We still had time, every scientist proclaimed. Years, decades maybe, every mode of media had promised.
They were lies.
The earth had no time left, and everybody was going to burn.
Ram wasn't going to let himself die without a fight. The earth had made its choice, and now he had choices of his own to make.
By the time he put his shoes on and made a dash for the living room, the bedroom was reduced to a fiery death inferno. His Samoan butt retreated to the front door for escape.
All the living room windows suddenly burst. Jet-burner streams of fire bathed his domicile. His collection of NFL trophies as the quarterback of the St. Louis Rams were melting into something morbid looking. Everything was burning bright. He could hear screams throughout the building as people were being cooked alive. The reek of scorched flesh tainted the air. Ram coughed against the acrid, black smoke that filled his lungs.
Nobody was going to make it out alive. Still, Ram had to try and survive. His basic human instincts kicked into serious overdrive.
Roast or run.
Ram chose run.
He plowed into the hallway with flames licking at his back. The long length of doors into other apartments were actively ablaze. Smoke was pouring through the cracks, reducing visibility. Fires were downgrading the walls into kindling. Explosions, like bursting gas lines, rocked the property outside. Things didn't appear to be safe inside or outside.
Everywhere, death.
Two-thirds of the apartment structure erupted as if a C-4 bomb had been triggered. The wall nearest Ram went up into torn up smithereens. Ram back-pedaled in the other direction. There was the only way left to go, and that was towards the emergency stairs.
Before he could open that door, it was thrown open for him.
Out stumbled the building's superintendent.
Carlos Martinez's face was like melting pizza. Flesh was popping and oozing in liquid mudslides of skin. It wasn't from the fire. His skin was sizzling and melting from something...else.
Carlos' screams were blood-curdling. He pleaded to Ram in a terrible shrill, "It's raining acid! Don't go outside! God help us! Death is everywhere!"
Carlos pressed a .45 pistol to his skull. His hand was melting into the gun's handle before he pulled the trigger.
Ram knew what was about to go down. "No, don't do it!"
Carlos put a bullet between his eyes.
Ram staggered two steps away from the super's corpse. He didn't have many choices now. The hallway behind him was entirely engulfed in flames.
No go.
The emergency stairs would be like taking a step into hell's furnace. Ram could vaguely make out the mottled black bodies thrashing in the incendiary colors as they slowly burned to death on the stairs.
Check that off the list.
Outside, if Carlos was right—and judging by his skin, Carlos was right on the money!—would be an acid rain shower waiting for him. If Ram enjoyed his skin, he wouldn't dare go outside.
From top to bottom, the fourteen story apartment building was attacked by new explosions. The force of one BOOM threw Ram against the big bay window near the emergency exit. His two-hundred and thirty pound bulk easily broke through the glass. He plum
meted three stories down and landed in the deep end of the apartment complex's pool. Other people had had the idea of jumping into the pool for safety earlier. Some made it down successfully, while others had struck the pavement and broke their bodies. The lucky ones died on impact. The unlucky ones writhed in agony.
The rain pelting down onto the city was melting trees, setting grass on fire, and acting as liquid bullets as they struck hapless victims as they ran for their miserable lives. Some drops acted as napalm; one drop dissolved every ounce of flesh and sucked every fluid dry from the human body in seconds. Others spontaneously combusted. Some would go off like bizarre fireworks. Their heads would explode and unleash sprays of flames and boiling blood from the neck. Arms and legs would blast off, releasing unreal fountains of fire.
Ram stayed under the pool's surface. The city was rocked by what sounded like missile attacks. Ambulances and police sirens wailed. Choppers flew across the sky only to be exploded by the elements. Human suffering echoed from every cardinal direction.
Ram was losing air. He could hear others gasp and struggle to decide whether to return to the surface for air and risk death, or to drown and forget it all.
He had his eyes open when the bottom of the pool came undone. They were sitting on top of a volcano, the way the flames exploded through the concrete and sent them airborne. Once he reached about six feet up, he was delivered back down to the ground. When he hit the grass, Ram wasn't sure where he'd been relocated. He could only collect himself up off of the ground, shake his possibly concussed head, avoid the flames around him, and see everything be eaten by reds, yellows, and oranges.
He was standing underneath a burning tree now. He was near his apartment building at the edge of a dog park. The cityscape looked to have been bombed by incendiary missiles. Some in the streets who'd been kicked out of buildings by the raging flames stood with wide open arms as the acid rain melted their skin from top to bottom. They were plastic figurines in a microwave set too high. They realized the fight was futile. Death would be a blessing. And they accepted that blessing.
Ram couldn't process such decisions. Who wanted to think of suicide as the better option? Certainly not him. The things he'd been through in one lifetime were far worse than any scorching hot death kiss.
A hand covered in melting sores and popping flesh covered Ram up with a large silver blanket. Underneath that silver blanket stood a woman in her mid-thirties. She was terrified and covered in gray soot. Ram didn't process the woman so much. He focused more on the pitiful man who was dying from serious burns.
Half the man's face was edging off of his bones and staining his shirt in greasy smears. One hand clutched Ram by the collar of his shirt, and the other hung limp at his side, having lost all of its skin.
The voice was pure agony. "Listen to me. Keep your ears open, big man. I'm as good as dead. It's simple, if you want to live. You stay under this blanket, and it'll keep you safe from the acid rain. This doesn't come free, pal. Here's the deal. You get to live, if you swear to me you'll see my daughter to safety. See her into the new world."
"But how, I—"
"Listen!"
The man's waxy lips dripped down his chin to reveal bared teeth. "Promise me you'll see her to safety. Gaby's my daughter. Promise me you'll look after her, even after the world is gone."
The man's good hand slapped a plastic wristwatch with a big box at the top onto Ram's wrist. There was no face for a clock. A green dot blinked on the box in the bottom corner. The watch's purpose was unclear.
"They're looking for us right now. This is a tracking device. Stay under the blanket. Don't move. They'll pick you up soon. Now promise me you'll honor your end of the bargain. See Gaby to safety."
"I PROMISE! Now tell me what this is all about. Who are you?"
"No time. Honor this deal. Do it for a dead man."
The man turned away from his daughter, and hobbled out from underneath the safety of the silver blanket.
"I love you, Gaby. I pray you get to live in the new world. It's all I ever wanted for you. I'm sorry it had to end this way. The things I knew. The things they kept from the world. Many innocent people died. Maybe they didn't have to. Forgive me! I made things worse. I helped them."
"Dad, no!"
Ram had the instinct to hold Gaby back with one arm. She was a frail thing, and he easily kept her in place. When her father was doused in acid rain, he instantly melted down to bones. Soon after that, the man was simply vapor drifting across a scorched landscape.
Ram wasn't sure how to console Gaby. "Don't look. He's gone. I'm sorry."
Gaby put her face into Ram's chest and sobbed.
The gray plastic watch on his wrist suddenly beeped. The green light turned solid. Ram heard a rush of air from above. What touched down was a giant steel box with twin thruster engines burning hot. He thought of a spacecraft from the future the size of two mini-vans combined. The acid rain and fire did nothing to harm the exterior. From below the hovercraft vehicle, a step ladder was dropped down to their position.
From the hovercraft, a voice spoke through an intercom.
"Climb up to safety. Time is limited. You must hurry."
Ram absorbed a new series of screams from nearby, as he did the sights of buildings toppling over and being consumed by raging fire. This was his only chance to live. Whatever promise he'd made to the dead man, Ram decided to honor it.
"Get onto my back, Gaby."
Gaby did so without question. Ram climbed up each rung of the rope ladder. When he reached the bottom of the vehicle, a slot underneath the hovercraft opened. Rescue workers reached out to help the two of them up into the main cab. Once inside, they were seated in a small area with six other persons who were shaken up and covered in grit and ash.
The two rescue workers wore black helmets with blue tinted faceplates. The two removed Ram's and Gaby's watches. Underneath the thick box was a barcode. The rescue workers scanned the codes.
One of the workers announced, "Gaby Reigns and General Reigns. That completes the list. Everybody is picked up. Now let's get a move on to base, before everything goes to hell. There's only one way off this planet, and it's about to leave in thirty minutes."
On the Way to Safety
This wasn't a time to talk.
This was the time to recover.
Everybody was silent in the main cab. Those inside the hovercraft watched the world come undone through the thick plated glass. The view was horrible. The city of Houston was literally engulfed in flames. The skies were spewing acid rain that pelted the city and turned everything into a simmering death broth. Lightning branches caused sonic boom blasts. Those branches ruined skyscrapers, destroyed cityscapes, and treated the city of Houston like a battlefield. They were high up enough that they couldn't see individual people be melted down. Ram thanked God for that small favor.
He thought back to how the man scanning their watches called Ram "General Reigns". If they knew his real identity, would they kick him off of this ride? He made a promise to a man in the throws of death. See Gaby to safety.
Ram would do just that.
He wouldn't chance his life asking risky questions.
Concerns piled up in Ram's mind. How could this hovercraft survive the acid rain and fire? Why were people wearing the plastic watches saved, and the others without them were left to die? And where the hell were they going? The earth was cooked.
Gaby's death-pale face remained still. Tears had dried around her eyes. Her straight blonde hair was covered in ashes. She wouldn't meet Ram's stare. If he could get any information out of her, it would help him figure these things out.
She just watched her father melt to death.
She may need more than a minute to cope.
Yeah, and you just watched some sick shit go down too.
There isn't any time to go to pieces.
Ram was about to ask somebody sitting in the seats where they were going when one of the two rescuers spoke up.
&nb
sp; "We're about to land. Prepare yourselves. Once we land, we need to move, and move fast. We're slightly behind schedule. Don't be alarmed. We only ask you do as we say, and ask the questions you have later. Anybody who goes against protocol will be left behind. Trust me; you don't want to be left behind."
Ram's gut was telling him something was very wrong about this situation. Why weren't others rescued? There had to be others out there who were alive and facing peril.
The sight below stole Ram away from his thoughts. He couldn't peel his eyes from the shocking thing. The hovercraft was lowering down towards the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
What was left of it.
Most of it was burning bright and collapsing. The only thing that didn't burn was the giant globe of steel. The huge black ball was standing topside on a helipad. The bottom of the ball had four giant rocket thrusters. Ram imagined a space hamster ball on steroids. He guessed it could fit thousands of people inside, easily. The steel could take on fire and acid rain without sustaining any damage.
The pilot up front announced, "Approaching The Redeemer. Hold tight, folks. We're almost to safety. Keep your eyes set to the future."
The hovercraft fast-approached The Redeemer. A slot opened on the side of the giant ship, and they flew inside. After traveling in a dark tunnel, a light appeared up ahead. A small docking station materialized.
Once they landed, Ram would learn the truth about The Redeemer, and those specially chosen to board the vessel.
The Redeemer
The landing pad stretched the length of an airplane hanger. Hovercrafts, the same ones that delivered them inside the giant globe, were lined up in a side-by-side formation. Almost a hundred of the crafts were being unloaded of persons. Shaken up survivors were being led by the men in black helmets and blue visors. The pilots and crew wore white jumpsuits covered in thick armor. Ram noticed they had holsters equipped with taser guns and wooden batons.
