Leon glanced over his shoulder, pleased to see his own armored vehicles had chosen to stay out of the skirmish. Their ATVs were smarter than that.
All Medals ground troops scattered towards forest cover, away from the road. But all those routes were covered by the flame-spewing Nomads who set up a wall of flames between the Brazilian soldiers and the forest line. Left with no other egress, the soldiers fled up the dirt road that had been cleared earlier.
Once forced into the kill zone, the Umbrage started picking them off from the forest rimming either side of the dirt thoroughfare. Whichever ones they missed with their boomerangs and their slingshots, the serpent rays took care of, swooping down from the sky and slicing through the men so fast they didn’t even have time get a lock on them with their weapons.
Natty pointed to the kill zone. “Look, the Ubuku are fighting alongside the Umbrage.”
Leon smiled and nodded. “They have a lot more in common than they ever realized. Now that the triple threat is out of the way, I’m guessing they’ll continue to find more universal ground.”
“Whoa!” Natty exclaimed. “Who’s the third party?”
“The female Umbrage,” Cassandra explained.
Natty pinched his eyebrows. “Um, is it me or do they seem more deadly with those weapons than the males?”
Leon squinted to get a better look at them. Finally, he picked up his binoculars. “They’re definitely the superior fighters. Even without…”
“You don’t think that’s a little weird?” Natty said.
“Trust me,” Cassandra interjected. “I’m no expert on human nature, but when it comes to Mother Nature, I’m not half bad. And it’s not weird at all.”
“Where did they get the laser weapons from?” Natty asked. “You leave some of your toys behind, Leon?”
“The lasers are coming from their eyes.”
Natty did a double take. “I assure you, that’s quite impossible.”
Laney smiled.
“Wait, what did you do to them?” Natty said, gauging her reaction.
“They’re better at moving chi energy through their energy bodies than the males.”
Natty smiled and nodded. “I’ve read that esoteric literature. Supposedly if you move enough chi through the chakras and nadirs running through our energy bodies you can fly these bodies like spaceships, levitate, conceivably even teleport. Fire energy weapons from the palms of your hands, which are just two of the body’s smaller chakras. The hardest thing to do of all, believe it or not, is none of the above. It’s moving the chi energy through the eyes without blinding yourself. No one’s seen anything like it firsthand for nearly three thousand years. All that remains are legends.” He tapped Leon on the upper arm repeatedly.
“What?” Leon said, sounding annoyed by the distraction.
“Um, you might want to recruit some of the ladies for, you know, what comes next, after the Amazon Forest Trials.”
Leon twisted up his lips in a grimace. “Maybe when I’m at a hundred percent. Enough of my old self anyway, to jump out of the way of laser blasts. In case their people skills aren’t any better than Cassandra’s here.”
“Um, I vote for having Cassandra handle the negotiations.”
Cassandra chuckled. “My pleasure. But not today. Leon’s right. We’ve all had quite enough for one day.”
It dawned on Leon that Rainbow Eyes was the most logical choice to handle the negotiations. He’d have come to the realization sooner if he weren’t so fatigued. Then again, maybe the females had to be in heat for him to have any sway over them.
***
Laney wrapped her arm around her husband. “I’ve definitely been hanging around you guys too long.”
“Why do you say that?” Leon said.
“All I can think is, what a lovely massacre. The more blood the better. We can use it to baptize all those being born into the future.”
Leon frowned. “Yeah, that’s a little dark.”
“You guys have a shrink that can help her with the PTSD?” Natty asked. “The sentient serpents she saw suffering at Truman’s hands are even more her creation than mine.”
“Nah, just put her in one of the robo-suits. Let her get it out of her system. She’s the only one that really hasn’t had a chance for any kind of cathartic experience.” Leon whistled to one of the engineers bringing up the rear and gestured for him to advance.
The engineer hopped to with the one giant robot Leon had held on to, though not at all for this purpose. He brought it to kneel before Laney, and lifted her into the control room in the head.
With a boyish show of enthusiasm, he demonstrated for Laney how to work the controls, while strapped in beside her.
Impatient with the old methods, she just peeled the skull cap off his head and donned it. “Oh yeah, that works too,” her copilot said.
In short order she set about doing the monster mash on the tanks still trying to do some damage. The Brazilians had been nice enough to also bring some M109s and some VBTP infantry fighting vehicles that still needed putting out of commission.
***
Even from their perspective on the ground, Natty could see that the young engineer’s expression seated beside Laney in the copilot’s station of the Goliath-Bot had morphed from boyish enthusiasm to one best described as holding on for dear life.
Laney ran up the road finding what remaining soldiers she could to step on. The Jackson Pollocks of red and white left on the dirt road in her wake reminded Natty of the chalk-drawn murals on city sidewalks that would never survive the rain. “You’re right,” they heard her say in their in-ear mikes over the party line the group was using. “This is very cathartic. I feel better already.”
She zeroed in on the fallen chunk of jet fighter. The pilot was sighing relief he’d actually survived an encounter with a UFO. His sense of relief might have been premature. Laney picked up the chunk of craft embedded in the dirt road and, with the help of the Goliath-Bot’s arm, flung it at another jet fighter in the sky.
The two crafts collided and exploded. “Just to be clear,” Laney said, “these bastards are on Truman’s payroll, right?”
“Oh, they’re on his payroll, all right,” Leon said over the party line. “You can bet they were securing the perimeter for his war games the whole time.”
“Perhaps just a little more drama therapy, then,” Laney said. She whistled for one of the hundred foot Nomads. It came running towards her and hopped on for a piggy back ride. It lingered in that position only briefly before continuing its ascent to the top of the Goliath-Both.
With the Nomad’s feet securely planted on the shoulders of the Goliath-Bot, it fired at the jet fighters zooming overhead that had somehow managed to elude the serpent rays, with the dragon-like bolus of flames of an intensity only an adult Nomad could emit. Up until now, the giant Nomads had been frustrated, as well, reaching for their attackers in the sky that remained forever out of range of their flame throwing.
The pilots flying overhead, just low enough to sight their targets but high enough to stay out of range of the Nomads had not taken note of the latest development. That hundred-foot cushion of air they allowed themselves had evaporated.
Every time the Nomad struck down a jet with its fire-breathing it screamed. Possibly that’s what catharsis sounded like on a hundred foot Nomad.
“I suppose this is what comes from sheltering people,” Natty said, still flummoxed by his wife’s sudden outpouring of pent-up rage. “Honestly, I didn’t know she was keeping all that bottled up.”
“You need to think back, way back, to when we first met you in the suburbs,” Leon said. “I was ready to do that to you then and I’d only known you five minutes. Poor thing. She’s got more grit than the rest of us.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny. You’re joking, right?”
Leon had resumed his hiking.
Cassandra passed Natty before he could chase after Leon. “Tell me he’s joking,” Natty said.
“I’ll
tell you this. For the prospect of a long and healthy life, you definitely married the right sister.” She left him standing there, falling in step behind Leon.
Leon bowed to All Medals, standing in a state of shock inside his jeep. “Lovely medals. I’d wear them proudly before the firing squad.”
The general suddenly looked at him more terrified than he was scared by the lizards.
“What? You thought they were going to give you another medal after today?” Leon passed him by.
So did the rest of his entourage.
Natty threw one last glance back at the FORESCO compound. “You know, we never did take the time to explore what was behind some of these doors.”
Leon snorted. He’d seen enough of the FORESCO compound for now. “Another story for another time.”
***
The farmer gazed down at the ground of his field and saw tire marks—the kind that planes leave landing and taking off. He knew because he’d seen enough dirt roads appropriated in the jungle for drug smuggling craft. Still, there was no sign of the planes, and his cows looked unharmed.
The grass would grow back soon enough. He let the matter go.
The cows were already approaching him, recognizing the bag of treats he frequently brought for them. Especially when he’d been away for a while, he made the offering to ameliorate his guilt. He gave each a banana, peel and all. The animals practically did backflips for them.
There was a strange shadow bearing down on the field. He was familiar with all the trees that circled his property because he’d made the decision long ago of which ones not to cut down. It was a bizarre shadow. Looked just like a human form. Well, not exactly human.
He tilted his head up at the sky and shadowed his eyes with his hand.
And then he swallowed hard.
It was one of those giant robots from the aliens that came to use the Amazon jungle for their war games, just like that movie Predator he saw with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’d snuck in to the theater when he was a kid; it wasn’t like he could afford the six Brazilian Reals.
There was a note hanging off the robot’s foot.
The farmer opened the note and read the message scribbled in Portuguese.
“Consider this payment for the use of your field. You can employ the Goliath-Bot for picking pineapples from the treetops. You can also exploit the labs inside the giant robot to help you with extraction and synthesis of compounds native to the rainforest of value to the world market. The legions of helper bots that assist in the labs will do all that for you.
“In warrior mode, the robot will also help you protect the forest against those that would harm it and your livelihood. Please find the manual with detailed operating instructions in the control room in the head of the robot.
“Please consider discontinuing the cow farming as it only adds to the damage already done to irreplaceable habitat. For each quarter pound burger sold at a hamburger joint, fifty-five square feet of rainforest has to be cleared.”
The farmer looked back at his cows and sighed. He would miss the animals, but the aliens were right. There were treasures in the rainforest worth millions-each. He just wasn’t much of a scientist. But if the giant robot could do the science for him…
EIGHTY-EIGHT
Natty was standing inside Truman’s boardroom at RevoCorp where, as memory served, not too long ago he was tearing his execs a new one for a space hotel design that just wasn’t all that.
Before him was the latest hologram.
About all that had changed since his prior visit was he was now standing in for Truman, and, of course, the plans under consideration were for another project altogether. “Well, what does the board of directors have to say?”
There had been some changes to the faces surrounding him at the table since last time. Natty supposed that was one big thing out of the ordinary. The board members now included Leon and his latest recruits to OMEGA FORCE, some still in special ops regalia. Specifically, Cronos. Beside him, Cassandra. And beside her, Sage Solo, the Umbrage with the rainbow eyes. Laney sat at the head of the table. Needless to say, Natty and Laney would require additional combat training to be brought up to speed even in their noncombat roles as technical consultants. They would need one more for the Magnificent Seven to be complete. Natty was saving that surprise for after the meeting.
And, of course, Patent was in the room. He was their liaison to ALPHA UNIT. A member of OMEGA FORCE himself on permanent assignment to ALPHA UNIT as their trainer.
Leon put his hand over Cassandra’s hand. Interlaced his fingers. Where before there was an air of casualness in the room, suddenly, you couldn’t cut the air with a blow torch. What little movement in the chamber remaining was the sound of people uncomfortably shifting positions in their seats. The squeaking they were making on the chairs was painful to listen to, right up there with nails across a chalkboard.
Leon kept glancing at his timepiece.
“What do you keep checking your watch for?” Natty asked, pacing the table about them.
“To see how long I keep the hand.”
The others chuckled and relaxed a little. Even Cassandra managed to breathe and stifle a smile both.
“That milestone achieved,” Natty said, picking up the remote, “here’s the next.” He depressed the button and put an end to the freeze frame. The group studied the 3-D holo vid of the space cannon being erected in fast-forward by self-replicating robots deep in space, well beyond Earth's orbit.
The "shells" being loaded into the cannon were space pods with skeleton crews of humans. Once in position, they were shot through space at faster than light speed to crash land on this or that planet. A feat made possible by the fact that the cannon created a wormhole whose ejection point could be redesignated at will. If the firing mechanism used actual propulsive force, it would have made more sense to situate it on the dark side of the moon just to handle the recoil of the gun. Natty was thinking it might not be a half bad idea to situate it there anyway just to keep prying eyes off it.
The spacemen in the simulation—the animation so realistic it was hard to separate from documentary footage—stepped out of the capsules to run and duck from the local animal life - prehistoric dinosaurs that looked only vaguely reminiscent of the ones on Earth back in the day.
Leon said, “Let me get this straight. You want to colonize the entire Milky Way galaxy overnight with this Mad Hatter space cannon idea of yours?”
“The space cannon is, more properly speaking,” Natty corrected him, “a wormhole tunnel initiator.”
“But we already have the mother ship,” Leon said. “If it got from Europa to Earth in no time at all for our wargames in the jungle, I doubt it’s lacking for space warping abilities.”
“It’s a warship, not an exploratory vessel,” Natty explained. “We’ll use it for keeping the peace for a federation of planets and alien civilizations one day, I imagine. But I thought we might like to start staking some territory for our own. Hence the space cannon.”
All that greeted him were slack-jawed expressions.
Natty sighed, deflating. “I suppose you're right.” He took another moment to swallow his defeat, then he pressed the remote on the slide projector. “Moving on. I have this idea for the next generation cheese grater.”
Leon and the others laughed at the latest 3-D holo.
Cronos, seated beside Leon, leaned into him and whispered, “How exactly are we supposed to guard a cheese grater?”
Leon made a sour face. “Don't give in to his rhetoric. He's just playing us.”
His eyes locked on the nextgen cheese grater, Cronos said, “Yeah, well, it's working.”
Leon sighed. “Fine, let's go invade the Milky Way.”
“You sure?” Natty said. “Because I rather like the cheese grater idea. I mean we learned our lesson, right, not to screw with the real world?”
Leon looked at him quizzically. “Reality? What's that?”
“It’s what they called it before
transhumans walked the Earth,” Cronos whispered in his ear.
“Besides, speaking as one of the only two adults in the room,” Natty said, throwing Laney a glance, “if you boys are ever to grow up, you have to get bored enough with your toys to put them away, right?” Natty said.
They gave each other strained looks around the table and emitted some groans. Leon was the first to say, “Touché.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear that,” Natty said, putting his face up to Cronos next.
Cronos sighed. “Touché!”
“And you?” Natty said, putting his head up besides Cassandra. “Maybe you can speak a little more clearly.”
Cassandra glared at Leon. “Can I just bang his head against the table?”
Leon smiled. “Give it to him. He earned it.”
“Touché,” Cassandra gritted out.
“I suppose you all want to know what other reason I have for asking you to become Space Cowboys?” Natty said.
“No, not really.” Cronos shifted in his seat. “I’ll do anything to be referred to as a Space Cowboy.”
“One of my devices has detected an advanced alien galactic civilization hellbent on destroying us,” Natty explained.
“Thank God,” Cassandra mumbled. “OMEGA FORCE could really use the excuse to take it’s game up a level. They’ve gotten soft, if you ask me. I’ll start creating a list of proper training exercises right away.”
“What are you all glaring at her for?” Patent said. “She’s right. Damn disheartening to see all my good work go to seed like that.”
“You’ll prepare a list of promising cadets from ALPHA UNIT to refresh our ranks with?” Cassandra said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Patent replied.
Leon finished glaring at her, since she was apparently content to ignore him. He was the first, other than Patent, to graduate that far. He returned his attention to Natty. “How can you know they’re hellbent on destroying us?” Leon said.
Mind of a Child_ Sentient Serpents Page 67
