by Vlane Carter
The sounds of ricocheting bullets echo around him. Jaden grunts as he sees sparks of bullets a few inches from his face going in different directions. Sabrina’s body just passes by, forty feet behind the levitating UAV. The wave of broken glass and smoke comes from all directions towards the area where he jumped from on the building. White smoke trails behind Jaden as he gets right under the UAV and fires his powerful gravity shock wave. The UAV propels out of control straight into the air at a high rate of speed. The glass around the entire building begins to fall towards the ground.
Jaden hears his daughter still screaming and quickly descends towards her free falling body. He gets closer and closer to her. He increases the pro-gravity Nanodrones around his body as he passes 405 feet. The UAV continues straight into the clouds and disappears. He quickly glides towards her and grabs her body. He catches her and increases the anti-gravity Nanodrones around his body. He creates an artificial force upwards. They both light up like a Christmas tree. They reach 103 feet from the ground as it begins to rain glass and debris from the building. They land on the ground while Jaden bends his knees to absorb the impact. A few firemen run towards Jaden from taking cover.
‘Did we land? Are we on the ground?’ Sabrina asks.
“Superman couldn’t have landed better,” Jaden says while smiling at his daughter
The firemen look at Jaden speechless and take cover from glass bouncing on the ground like hail. They run back under the shelter they were under and yell towards Jaden.
He carries Sabrina with his right arm and has the rectangular shield over his head like an umbrella with his left.
“That was amazing. I saw the whole thing, what are you some sort of superhero?” A fireman asks.
“Nice new helmets FDNY,” Jaden says.
“How did you do that? Did you break all the glass on the World Trade Center building yourself?”
“New York’s bravest, I was only trying to save my daughter and ex-girlfriend. My daughter was the number one priority, those other people needed a real superhero to save them. What was the point of blowing up the top of the building?” Jaden asks.
“That is what they started to do in Europe. It turns out people have been disappearing and returning as something else. The returned people infect other people. The military is taking out any tall buildings with an infrared beam shining on them. I’ve never seen anyone leap off the top of the building like that and survive. Are you one of them or are you a superhero or something?” The fire chief asks.
Jaden thinks for a second. He walks away from the crowd of men and turns around.
“After all I’ve been through the last couple of days, I would say I’m a superhero to the people I care about.”
The fire chief looks at Jaden with remorse as he walks away with his daughter in his arms.
“She going to be okay? If she is going to turn into one of them zombies, she has to be handcuffed and sedated,” an officer says under the shelter.
“She will be fine in about ten minutes!” Jaden yells.
“Try to get north of Canal Street, this area needs to be secured and locked down.”
The firemen talk amongst themselves. Jaden overhears one saying, “The last time I saw someone jumping from the World Trade Center like that, their bodies exploded when they hit the ground.”
“Did you see him running on the building like that? I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” another guy says.
The Nanodrones get to work to deactivate Sabrina’s Nanomoles. His right arm cradles her head. His left arm cradles her legs.
Kim continues to help children and other people. She has a child around her neck and another 2-year-old baby in her arms. Kim brings different children and women to nearby ambulances.
Jaden looks at his daughter and can’t believe how much she looks like him. He walks by the World Trade Center memorial area and a sign reads, We will never forget.
He communicates with Sabrina, “Sorry I missed out on your childhood. Being in another galaxy isn’t an excuse, but I didn’t even know you were created. I’m sorry you grew up without a father. I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but hopefully in the next nine minutes we will know all about each other,’ he says while continuing to walk towards the street.
Two miles north, the rape victim gets up and looks around. She screams as the pain hits her all at once. She limps around and sees the rapist lying with his eyes spaced out, not too far from her. She spits on him and kicks him. “Look what you did to me you asshole!”
She limps down the alleyway and around the corner. She looks around for an open hardware, 99-cent store or a place she can get scissors from. She sees an open Japanese restaurant. She walks inside and sees the store is vacant. She walks into the kitchen and finds some huge scissors for cutting up meat. She returns to the alleyway three minutes later with some big scissors.
“You want to rape women? I’m going to neuter you just like my cats are. You aren’t going to be raping anyone anymore.”
The man’s body begins to tremble and shake as he hears what she just said to him.
Sounds of thunder rumble in the background. Jaden decides to only use one nanoscanner to check the area. Behind him, the UAV aircraft comes from the clouds and falls straight towards the ground and explodes a few blocks over on Broadway. Jaden is continuing to walk with his daughter in his arms.
‘You know you weigh exactly what your mother weighed at her age?’ Jaden asks while walking pass fire trucks and police cars lining the street.
Sabrina is unconscious and doesn’t hear him. Jaden’s memories are being implanted into her brain. He saves her memories into a file in his brain. He sees an antique store and walks over to it. The door is wide open. It smells like an old person’s retirement home. He puts his daughter on the ground outside the store and walks inside. He picks up two stainless steel swords about three feet long and walks outside with them. Jaden compares them both and tosses the other one into the street. He practices swinging it back and forth in the middle of the street. Jaden goes back inside to pick up a metal shield and walks back out. He holds it around his left arm and swings with his right arm as if he is fighting someone. Sabrina wakes up and opens her eyes.
“Who are you suppose to be? A gladiator or Alexander the Great?” Sabrina asks while standing up.
“I am a BIO-Sapien warrior here to save Earth,” he says while swinging his new sword.
“Yeah okay. Do you have a PC cell phone? I need to update my Myfacebook page and check my e-mails.”
“That is your concern now? Updating a social networking page? Your mother is missing and you just woke up out of an alien induced coma and you are worried about the Internet? Are you out of your mind?”
“Please? My mother was holding my cell phone,” she says.
“No, I don’t have a PC phone. My girlfriend Kim has one, but the cell networks are down anyway. You teenagers these days. When I was a teenager my life didn’t revolve around e-mails, social networks and updating a page.”
“I’m sure it didn’t. If my PC or phone took fifteen minutes to download one image, I would revolve around something else also. My friends call people like yourselves dial-up dinosaurs,” she snaps.
“Very cute, I see what you learned in public school.”
“What did you do to me, I’m remembering all these new memories tied into my current memories. It is very confusing,” Sabrina says.
“In a few hours or few days, it will make better sense to you. Your mother let’s you wear a miniskirt this high?”
“Yes, I can wear whatever I wanna wear.”
“You are right about that, she let you wear a thong at the beach when you were fourteen right along with her. You were arrested for shoplifting last year, along with your Myfacebook crew?”
“How do you know about those things?”
“I know more now than a full time father would about you now. Your problem i
s that you didn’t get enough discipline or enough beatings growing up,” Jaden says while tossing the metal shield in front of him.
“My mother never hit me. You can go to jail for hitting kids these days. All kids these days have the ACS phone numbers programmed in their cell phones. One press of a button and the authorities are notified.”
“What is ACS?”
“Administration for Children Services.”
“You are lucky, I wasn’t around when you almost set your grandmother’s house on fire five years ago. You were warned several times about playing with matches. I would have given you a universal belt beating with a belt that my mother would have passed down to me. That belt was cleaned in holy water and sharpened with alligator teeth from generation to generation. After the certified beating, I would have called ACS for you and put you on the phone with them so you can tell them what I did. When they take you away, the crazy kids in ACS will beat your ass again and then you can call ACS again,” he snaps.
“Whatever! You would have been in jail and I would have pressed charges against you.”
“I would have pleaded insanity. I don’t know how the belt got into my hands your honor. My arms just started swinging by themselves and I kept hearing, ‘Why you little! Why you little!’ ”
“That Homer Simpson remark is so played out. Anyway, is my mother really dead?”
“No, she just took a ride into heaven, I’m sure she will be back. That was just God taking away a few people to see if they were heaven ready. I’m sure your mother will be back very soon, with all her sins.”
“That’s not true, the Darclonians are attacking Earth and people have Nanomoles in their brains that control them. You just deactivated both of mine,” Sabrina says quickly.
“Can’t hide the truth from you, Lisa Simpson.”
The nanoscanner detects a grey cloud of light the size of a Volkswagen car a few blocks away appearing below the buildings. The bright cloud moves quickly about 150 feet off the ground. It begins to beam five people at a time to the surface. The Asian and Russian looking DHWs quickly rush towards police, firemen and army officers. Some skin is missing from their faces and they look as if they were tortured. Their body and minds have been completely taken over and have bioparasites. They look like pale, discolored freaks. The police fire their guns at the DHWs a block and a half from Jaden. The army men have on exoskeleton bionic suits. They fire thermobaric bullets at the threats. The freaks’ internal organs implode and they fall towards the ground. The freaks have superhuman strength and jump fifteen feet into the air onto their victims. The mysterious light cloud beams down seven people to the surface. They quickly infect other people. A few of them have small lasers firing from their arms. Officers return fire and takes cover. Two of the DHWs get close enough bite a fireman while pulling off his helmet. The exo-soldiers fight the DHWs and overpower them on Church Street. They take out the small group of DHWs and they lay on the ground bleeding. The bright cloud turns completely black and lightning from the sky strikes the dark cloud several times. The loud thunder echoes in all directions.
“What is happening? Why are there fireworks going off?” Sabrina asks.
“Keep down. Those aren’t fireworks going off, that is police shooting their guns at some DHWs. That must be your mother’s side of your brain talking about fireworks going off at the beginning of Armageddon. The police were shooting at some immigrants without visas or passports. The American Embassies around the world denied too many people from coming into America over the years for dumb reasons and the people are here now for revenge,” Jaden whispers behind a car.
“Are you serious?” She asks in a loud tone.
“Shhh.”
It is quiet and a cold howling wind blows by them. Something shiny and black falls to the ground from the dark cloud. A four-foot circular pothole forms under the object. Matrix 3 Soundtrack, Neodammerung track 13 begins to play in Jaden’s mind. There is a loud crash and the military officers and police’s attention is at this object floating above the ground. The shiny black dark energy knight kneels down to the ground. It has two hands near the ground and its head faces the ground. Hundreds of broken pieces of concrete levitate and suspend themselves in midair around this alien being. A nanoscanner keeps its distance from the D.E.K.. It detects strong x-ray emissions and strong gravity disruption. The police and military look in complete shock. A tank drone approaches from down the street behind the D.E.K.. They all begin to quickly fire their guns at this knight still kneeling to the ground. A Humvee pulls up on the left and fires the ray gun towards the D.E.K. A blue circular disc begins to spin around the midsection of the D.E.K. The military officers fire thermobaric bullets at it. The bullets stop midair next to the broken concrete. The thermobaric bullets don’t get a chance to explode. A female officer tries to Taser the D.E.K., but the electricity becomes frozen next to the hundreds of bullets and concrete. The electricity travels back towards the officer Tasering her. The tank drone fires a rail gun projectile and it stops a few feet from the D.E.K. Jaden’s Nanodrones and nanoscanner detects high levels of dark energy coming from different directions. They also detect an event horizon surrounding the D.E.K.. The ray gun microwaves heat the air around the event horizon.
