by Ryder Stacy
Thanks Pal, Rock couldn’t help but type in, wondering what the computer would make of it. But it remained silent, unable to digest the data. Rock leaned around in his pilot seat to wake Archer, but the Freefighter was already alert, staring back at him through sick-looking eyes.
“Time to leave,” Rock said softly. He pulled out the parachute from beneath his seat and strapped it on around his back, showing Archer how to do the same. The big American became more and more concerned as he struggled with the straps, realizing what was about to happen.
“Noooo fall,” he mumbled through tightly gritted teeth. “Archer nooo falllll.”
“It’s okay,” Rock said soothingly. “These will take us down.” He pointed to the chute on his back. Archer looked at the Doomsday Warrior with fearful eyes but continued strapping the chute on. He trusted Rock even though his heart beat rapidly, filled with unknown fears.
The MIG continued to rise, skimming just below some low-flying misty clouds. They passed the shoreline, and Rock could see the green and brown of the forests below. The morning sun rose higher into the sky, shedding a pure light on the jet and its occupants. Far off in the distance he glimpsed lakes—five of them—blue and sparkling. The Great Lakes—so they were up at the very northern border of the United States. It would be a long trek home, but the clear waters were a beautiful sight to his eyes.
Suddenly the warning alarm went off again. The computer flashed the words Automatic Ejection—10 Seconds. Archer struggled furiously to get the front strap of his chute closed across his broad chest. The jet automatically slowed to two hundred miles per hour, and at the very instant that Archer snapped the locking mechanism closed, the cockpit covering flew off into the air above them. Their seats shot up and out of the falling plane. Rockson could hear Archer let out little yelps of fear as they flew out into the cold morning air.
Twenty-Three
Thousands of miles away a group of creatures sat in a wide circle, their eyes shut tightly. They glowed with a blue sparkling electricity as their bodies pulsed with energy. They looked as if they had been turned inside out—their organ systems on the outside of their flesh—heart, kidneys, liver stomach, and brain all visible and pumping life through them. They called themselves only The People though they were known by another name to the human species: The Glowers.
They sat on small pillows, absolutely motionless. Their minds were linked together in an ever-changing pattern of thoughts and visions. They knew that Rockson was back. They could feel his energy as his body entered into the airspace of America. It was good. He was alive. They had not been sure he would survive when he had been taken away. Their powers of prophesy had been strangely clouded as if fate itself had been unsure what to do with him. But now he was returned to his land of birth—this man of ultimate destiny—Ted Rockson. But they could feel something else. A terror looming in the future—very near and very terrible. There was so much pain and blood in the vision they shared that they could barely stand to feel it. But they had to. That was their destiny—to see all, to know what would be. And only Rockson stood in the way of the darkness, the destruction. But they could not see beyond. Once again the future seemed uncertain as to its course. There was much possibility—for good—and for evil. It would be up to him. He alone could alter the time lines of mankind’s future. But the darkness, the terror was strong. Very strong. They had never felt such a black energy, such evil. What the man Rockson was about to face would be the battle of his life, pitting the very elemental forces of the universe against one another—a war between the darkness and the light.
Twenty-Four
Rockson fell slowly to the earth below. Above him he could see Archer’s chute had opened as well, though the freefighter was kicking furiously as if trying to stay aloft through sheer leg power. The Doomsday Warrior looked down. The land spread out below him in all its crazy-quilt patterns of beauty and ugliness, life and disease. But it was his America. His country. And he had just struck a major blow against the Reds. Attacked them on their home ground for the first time in a century. And he had wounded them. The consciousness of just who was the strongest had tilted dramatically to one side on the changing scales of history. Things would be different now.
Rockson swung slowly back and forth in the wind as he fell lower and lower towards the fields of America.
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