by Nick Ryder
Drake stopped breathing. The upper half of his body went limp. I ran, hunched over, back to where my tech sergeant waited eagerly to open a much needed can of Air Force-issued whoopass on that stomping oversized demon.
“What’re your orders?” she asked me. She knew the answer but followed the protocol.
All the deaths meant I was in charge of more and more people as commanders fell left, right and center. Multiple squadrons were now looking to me to at least give general orders. Soldiers slid down the mountainside looking for cover and joining the attacking forces. This was all the men I was going to get, and I had to make their lives count.
I needed a miracle.
But before Tuesday, I didn’t believe people could fly. Then I saw a man hovering above a building in downtown Trenton before a chopper swatted him like a bug on a window.
Now anything was possible, and I had to believe that so was our survival.
A foot slammed the ground near the tank track where I took up position. The dust cloud momentarily obscured the creature’s thick leg. I saw an infected toenail. The creature had ailments, which meant it wasn’t invulnerable. That meant there was still hope.
“Aim for the balls,” I called to my technician. Red blossomed over her face. “That thing is tough, but I don’t know any creature alive that doesn’t go down from a swift kick in the nuts!”
I grabbed two grenades from my pouch and pulled the pins. I had to time this just right otherwise it would be useless. After counting down in my head, I lobbed them at the humanoid’s twin hanging targets.
But a single step was all it took for the creature to close the gap between us. I blacked out the moment its thick meaty flesh backhanded me, but not quite before I felt the unfamiliar but unmistakable sensation of my spine separating in two.
Chapter Two
What surprised me most of all was the fact I wasn’t dead. Somehow, I’d survived the onslaught of that towering thing. My reflex was to ask for a sitrep from any of my nearby troops.
I moved my arms, turned over and stood up, brushed myself off and stretched. At least, that’s what I planned to do. Only my arms didn’t work, and while I’d never considered the possibility before because I took them for granted, I couldn’t feel my legs. There was an intense ringing in my ears, the kind of familiar sound one gets used to when firing live rounds. But this time it was more profound and likely there to stay.
Over the tinnitus, I heard a broadcast. Someone had a report playing.
“This is the end of times,” the voice said. It had a faraway resonance that went straight to the core. “We are at the end of something, and the beginning of something else.”
A shudder probably would have worked its way through my body if I could have felt any of it.
“Someone shut that trash off,” a voice called. I wanted to look around. I wanted to see who was there, to ask where the unit was, and why I couldn’t feel any of my extremities.
The closer to consciousness I came, the more of the world came into view. My vista was limited and dim. There was an olive colored fabric flapping overhead. I thought I was lying on my back, but I couldn’t be sure. I knew there was a device strapped to my head because I saw the white plastic halo through peripheral vision. There was an IV line coming from my body.
A triage unit somewhere out on the front lines. They had salvaged my pieces and glued me back together. I just needed to wait until the glue finished drying before I got up and went after that son-of-a—
“This one’s awake, sir,” a woman said. I think she touched my arm or somewhere near my shoulder because my head bobbed a little, my vision blurring.
“Sergeant,” a second, deeper voice said. I knew he was close by, but I couldn’t see him. Then a head came into view. I realized the man had leaned over my face to achieve an eye to eye conversation. “Can you tell me your name and rank?”
I swallowed, feeling my tongue press against the roof of my mouth. I licked my lips. They were automatic, nervous tics. “I’m Master Sergeant Solomon Black, US Air Force.” My jaw was strapped to the head harness, and I spoke through clenched teeth.
“Do you know who I am?”
I saw the Major insignia on his collar, but I didn’t recognize the face. “No, sir,” I said.
“The head trauma could have caused some short-term amnesia.” The woman’s hair flashed in my line of sight and it dangled in my face, tickling my cheeks, when she leaned over. She passed an LED pen light over my eyes, and I squinted.
“Sitrep, sir?” I asked.
The Major sighed. He stood up straight again. “Can you get him upright so I can talk to him?”
“He’s had severe trauma to the spine—”
“Does that matter now?” the captain snapped.
“No, sir.”
The view changed as more of the facility came into view. The bed bent my body upright, so I was semi-recumbent. Now I saw the Major in full. His face was moderately familiar, his uniform filthy, bloody too from who knew how many fallen comrades.
The doctor left them alone.
He ran a dirty hand over his scalp. “Look, Black, a lot is going on. A lot of it we’re still learning. We don’t know.” He looked troubled. He sat on a gurney near mine. There was a whole row of patients. The one nearest to me contained a man laid on his back. I didn’t know if he was awake or not, but he wasn’t complaining about the captain using the bed as a chair.
“Honestly, I don’t think any of the brass know what to do about any of this. We’re in the middle of something that’s taking over completely.” He had a look that suggested he didn’t like giving bad news. But Majors didn’t have the luxury of feelings. They had orders, and those orders came from the top and filtered through them to people like me that made the impossible happen.
“What do you remember?” he asked me. It was possible he needed to mentally regroup, and if he knew I was all caught up, then it was easier for him to fill me in on what I’d missed.
“I remember Tuesday,” I told him. “We were deployed to Iowa that night. We hit the ground running. I lost a lot of my unit to… to something…” I let it hang because it was easier to process things I could articulate than stuff I’d seen and couldn’t explain. “We engaged a hostile in Sector 5. I remember that far. The last thing I saw was a Corporal die.”
The Major nodded his respect. “I see.”
“Can you tell me what happened to that… thing? And to my squad?”
“The humanoid was taken out.” There was no confirmation as to whether my planned attack to the balls had been effective, but I didn’t ask. All that mattered was that it was dead.
“We’re not taking orders from the president anymore,” the Major continued. “Apparently, twenty-four hours after the start of all this, the president turned into something… people said it was squid-like and he ate his entire cabinet before the secret service put him down.
“We’re out of long-range communication. There was some atmospheric event that caused a collision in orbiting satellites. They called it a Kestrel Effect.”
I knew he wasn’t making a joke using the wrong word like my man had in the field, but I also knew better than to correct the Major.
“But some homeless guy came out of the blue, actually floated out of the sky to say he was a Seer now, and we've been taking orders from this guy for seventy-two—” He looked at his watch. “Seventy-five hours.”
“Where’d he come from?” I asked. It was important for the Major to know I was paying attention.
“No one knows. As I said, the Seer literally came out of the sky. I saw pictures of this guy before we lost high orbit satellites. He’s dressed in rags. Bushy beard looked unwashed. He said he’s always been here and now is his time to help humanity.” The Major gave me a look that suggested whatever was going on outside the large triage tent was a lot worse since I was away. “We’re losing our shit out there. A lot of people don’t know who to trust.”
The doctor appeared again.
She pulled along a substantial portable unit that had a long steel armature. There was a cylinder of silvery liquid attached to the device. The end of the arm had a pistol grip and a syringe.
“Are we ready?” she asked.
The Major looked from her to me and back again. Without warning or permission, the doctor moved the pistol grip to the side of my skull.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s the future,” the Major said. He sighed and added, “And it’s an order.”
The doctor leveled the syringe at the back of my neck, just below my head, just out of my line of sight. “This shouldn’t hurt.” She depressed the trigger. I saw the plastic tube attached to the trigger fill with the quicksilver. “All done,” she announced. She moved to the next bed and did the same procedure.
“What was that?” he asked the Major.
“Nanorobotics.”
“So I can keep fighting. This will cure me.” It was a statement not a question. What was the point of this if my arms and legs were going to continue to be dead?
“In a sense. You’re paralyzed from the neck down, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep fighting.”
I was struggling to keep a hold of myself. Just keep talking, just keep asking questions. Deal with the unexpected like a soldier should, and break down in private.
“How?”
“You’re shipping out of here at 0400. More will be explained then.”
No, he couldn’t just leave it at that. That wasn’t enough.
“What about my team?” I asked about the squad again, unsure if the Major had purposefully avoided my inquiry earlier or not answered on purpose.
“We’re a mess right now. There’s a division among the men. Some are following the Seer. They have this plan that’s supposed to bring us together as a new race.” He waited and pressed his lips together. Like me, he obviously had the impression it sounded too far-fetched. “And some of us are still fighting.”
“I’ll fight until I can’t any longer.” But I was paralyzed from the neck down. That was my I can’t fight anymore moment.
“I need someone I can trust, Sergeant. You don’t remember who I am, but I know you. A decorated hero, Master Sergeant with the 1100th Air Force Special Operations, you’re exactly who I need on the ground when push comes to shove.”
“I’ll do what’s required of me.” Whatever the Major had in mind, I would follow my orders.
“You’re going to a facility that will help retrain soldiers. You’re going to be an important part of our fight. I’m counting on you, Sergeant.”
I nodded, the only movement I could manage. There would be no more saluting to my superiors.
The Major rested a hand on my shoulder. A hand I couldn’t feel. “We’ll hold the line until your new unit is trained. I’m sure we’ll see each other again, Sergeant.”
And then the Major was gone, striding across the medical tent and out of view.
My head was reeling. So many riddles. Maybe the Major wasn’t even sure what was happening, maybe he’d been fed the same generic lines he’d just given to me.
With my head elevated I could see fifteen transport beds: gurneys designed to move people in a hurry. I heard the rumble of a jet engine. We must be at an airbase. There was nothing in front of me that gave away our current location. And in the sea of bodies, I appeared to be the only one conscious or even alive.
Either way, I needed to keep speaking to someone if the lack of feeling in my body wasn’t going to cause a breakdown.
“Doctor!” I called, voice sounding weak to my ears.
When she approached I finally paid her enough attention to notice her rank.
“Lieutenant,” I corrected.
The doctor came at my call; she was the only medical personnel I saw inside the tent.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Malmstrom Air Force Base.”
“Can you give me details?”
She sighed, looking harried. “Short explanation, Sergeant, you’re going to a top secret base and even I don’t know where it is.”
“What about the nanobots?” I asked quickly. She was going to leave me alone.
“Nanorobotics is the only way we can be sure your DNA isn’t going to sprout up something like what we’ve already seen. They’re doing their job, prepping you for the next stage of the fight.”
“How long before I’m back on my feet again?” I needed to know when I could get my hands dirty and get some much-needed payback.
“That’s above my pay grade.” She tapped my leg. I saw her inspect her hand right after, and make a face. Then she left me alone.
It was quiet inside the tent. But there was a lot of machinery outside. Then a flurry of personnel began to cart away the gurneys. One person to each of the mobile beds, and they moved quickly.
My head was dropped back down. The young man I saw over me didn’t speak as he moved the gurney. He looked like he hadn’t started shaving yet, but he was quiet and moved in line as I passed through the flaps of the tent and breathed fresh night air.
One by one, we were loaded on the transport, each gurney secured to the steel deck of the plane. When the Lockheed C-130 Hercules took its place on the tarmac and bolted down the runway, my head lolled with the movement and rested against my shoulder. I saw a face of a young woman. She was awake, and tears glistened in her eyes.
“Something in your eye?” I asked her.
She sniffled and blinked at me. “Just a bit of sand, sir,” she said. She gave me a long look. I kept my eyes on her face, but I could see enough of her upper body to notice the bloody stumps where her arms should have been.
“What’s your name?” I asked her, dropping the rank. Sometimes it was best to make small talk.
“Cassiel Donovan, Sergeant.”
“That sounds biblical,” I commented.
She smiled. “It is.” She sniffled again. I understood. “My father named me.”
“Do you know what it means?” I asked her. “I’m Solomon, by the way. Sol is what most people call me. Peace, I think it means.”
“Dad said I was the Speed of God,” she whispered, “One of the Seven Archangels.”
“Two very old names.”
She swallowed audibly. “World’s gone to shit faster than even the most cynical could’ve predicted, huh, Sol?”
My lip quirked. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. It hurt to think about. At least hurting meant feeling something.
“We’re picking up some speed now, Cassiel.”
“It’s Cassie.”
The Hercules rolled, and my head turned with it. I lost sight of Cassie for a moment. When we leveled out, I saw her face again. It was angelic, blonde hair, blue eyes; she had teardrop lips and a sweet button nose. She looked in her mid-twenties. I was already in my mid-thirties. She was the kind of girl I was always attracted to: athletic and full of life. Even without her limbs.
There was a klaxon bleating from the front of the plane. The turbulence began to shake up my view.
“We’re gonna land hard,” I told her. I had experience in swift drops and quick exits. “I’d hold your hand if I could move my arms.”
Cassie laughed and said, “I’d hold your hand if I had any left.”
The steel platform groaned under the gurney. Something scratched at the hull of the transport. The airship dropped suddenly. I saw my dead limbs flung in the air. Then the Hercules rolled again. I heard the chugging of counter-measures ejected from the plane.
“Are we going to die?” she asked me. It went dark. There was a dim red light somewhere near the exits, but I couldn’t see her face.
“We’re not going to die,” I lied. “We’re on our way to kick the shit out of these assholes.”
“We’re the good guys, we’re not supposed to die.”
I wanted to try to calm her with body language, with anything, but I couldn’t. “We are,” I agreed. “Even if we had changed, we’re the kind of people who would
have used it for good, right?” It was good to keep talking.
“Yes,” she said. Quiet but firm.
“We’re not going to die,” I said again. “The world needs us now.”
Then the Hercules jumped and slammed hard on the surface of something. Some of the gurneys came unbolted and shifted. Bodies flew in the air. I looked for Cassie but didn’t see her. Then something clocked me over the head, everything went dark, and, well, I’m pretty sure I died.
Chapter Three
I blinked and saw nothing. I wanted to move because my nose itched and I couldn’t scratch it. I didn’t feel any pain. But I hadn’t felt pain since the naked giant with those pendulous purple balls had swatted me.
“Hello?” I said. I wanted to see something. But apparently, now I was blind as well as paralyzed. “Cassie?” I called. “Major?”
There was something wrong with my voice. It sounded like I was talking underwater. It was more in my head than outside. But I was breathing okay, and it still felt like I had a mouth and not gills. I took a deep breath. Something smelled sterile and clean. There was just the annoying itch on my nose that I couldn’t scratch, so surely I still had a face. I was still me.
In the current climate, that kind of thing couldn’t be taken for granted.
“Hello?” I called again.
There was a shift. A tremor that radiated around me, that shook my core. I felt a surge of heat and possibly a jolt of electricity. There was the drum of electronics and I more felt than heard the insistent buzz of engines whirring.
“And how are we today?” a voice called. It was the jubilant sound of every hopeful person I’d ever heard. It was the voice of the over-the-top barista taking an order, the manager at the bank who had all your money, and the Boy Scout waiting outside the grocery store begging for donations in exchange for large drums of stale popcorn. The cumulative aspiration of everything sunny and good. It asked, “Are we in the best of spirits today?”
“Where am I?” I asked quickly. I couldn’t see anything. Was my throat dry, or was I imagining it?
