The gate began to move and its arm slowly began to spin, the outside turning clockwise and the inside counter-clockwise. I hung on, too afraid to move as the arms swept me down, over and then I ascended up. My hands and arms hurt from the burns from the severed coils. On my left arm the skin was slightly blistered and red. I groaned in the pain, struggling to maintain my grip.
The symbol was slowly turning orange. And I could feel the power of the winds pulling on me. I grasped for any groove, indentation or corner I could find to hold onto and not fall off, or fall in, as I came closer to the bay I was looking for. When the arm took me to the top of the gate I glanced below me at the people on the stage. Some of them had moved off stage among the crowd trying to force the camera crews to stop recording. One man, in particular, had his face covered and he was moving slowly among the crowd. I recognized him from the pit. He screamed something to someone on the stage and started pushing against the panicked attendees, wielding something in his hand. It flashed. A knife! I saw him quickly stab two people in the back. In the confusion when no one was paying any attention, he was attacking and killing people in the crowd undercover of the panic. His skin looked partially recovered but there were bleeding wounds on his face.
“Hurry!” I shouted angrily to the gate arm. I had to get down there. I held the cube in my hand, coming closer to the bay. The floor of the stage beneath me began to tremble. The decibel level and amount of panic in the room had just changed from one pitch to a higher pitch and lightening began to strike back and forth from the gate's center vortex. The arms had grown hot. I reached the bay, now close enough for me to do my work. Right as the gate sequence cycled to the fire symbol I slipped the activated cube inside the bay, the wrong way, and now I was moving away back down again.
“No! No! No!” I shouted and clung to the outside arm and shifted the cube again. This time, the cube lit up with brilliant yellow and green light and I could feel and hear the gate powering down, making a forced shut-off. The problem was, I was hanging on the side of the gate, my fingers sliding, feeling sweaty and strained. Deafening sirens went off in sharp, short bursts from the gate, then its center buds closed, closing off the vortex. Streaks of electricity shot from the cube and over the gate's arms as it self- destructed inside the bay. The plasma energy bolts eventually died. I saw one of the speakers look up at the bay in horror when he saw the cube inside it.
And this happened just right then my shield started to flicker and waver under the intense lights of the auditorium. After a few seconds of flickering, it failed completely. One of the women on stage screamed and pointed at me and the others turned to stare. I finally slipped and fell down, got up and dove into the crowd after the attacker.
“Look out behind you!” I heard Diamond shout. One of the CEO attendees raised a small lasgun preparing to shoot. I ducked down and rolled, the blast grazing my leg. I got up and leaped onto the attacker from the pit. We scuffled and I got hold of his head and yanked at his hair line. His human face tore off, blood vessels and fluid flying away. His tentacles filled with slime. He hurled some kind of curse at me in Hanga.
“Look! Look! This is what is invading our planet! Ignore them and keep the cameras rolling!” I heard Diamond's voice boom. He'd made his way to the stage, snatching a fallen microphone from the stage floor. A group of police officers were about to descend on him. I wrenched the Miku's head up by his tentacles, giving them a savage jerk. By then we both had the attention of quite a few people, he on stage and I on the floor.
“Look! I screamed. This is the enemy!” I dearly hoped they didn't think it was a Halloween mask. Some people near the stage were looking at the creature now in disbelief. Part of me was wondering if this was a smart idea but all eyes were on us. I had a chance to expose the enemy. And honestly, the looks on their faces were priceless.
“What?” someone exclaimed
“What the hell is that?”
“Sorry ladies and gentlemen but even though it's Halloween, this is not a Halloween mask! This is a close encounter with the third kind!” I said, yanking off one of his face tentacles. See, even in the teeth of death, I could still find the humor in all this.
Before I could say or do anything else he screeched in rage as blood flew from his face and torn appendage, turned on his heel, knocking me out of the way and ran behind the stage, escaping.
“Somebody follow him!” I shouted. But it was only words to stunned silence. Diamond took out a blaster and shot one of the plasma cords spilling plasma fluid and gas everywhere on stage before the police got to him and wrestled him to the floor.
“Rebel scum!” One of them spat. Amongst the group on the stage who hadn't disappeared yet those who were alien experienced their human faces melting to the nearly hushed silence of the crowd. I threw down the squirming appendage and pinged Vartan immediately. Her voice came in, harried and strained.
“It's me, Bob! Look, are you seeing this on the national feeds?”
“Seeing what? All they're showing is the outside fighting!”
“Is there any way that you can persuade or call someone to pay attention to what's going on inside?”
“Not at this very minute. I can deal with things on that front later. It'll be up to you, Robert. How are you going to do this?”
“I'll figure something out!”
“I know you'll get it done. What I can do is persuade a few on the police force to not shoot you and to pay attention to what you're trying to do. Did you stop the gate, for God's sake?”
“I stopped the gate.”
“Then the main mission's been accomplished.”
I shut off communication and hoped she could get them to listen to me. I looked around and found a camera man. I pushed my way toward him through the chaos soup.
“Hey, you!” The man looked alarmed though he never stopped shooting. I saw a few people surreptitiously shooting the scene unfolding with their own personal devices. Yes! I thought.
“Yeah, you!” I reached him. “Listen, how much of this did you get?”
“Weren't you the one that broke the gate?”
“Yeah and for good reason. Do you have any idea what was about to come through that gate?”
“What?”
“Death! In the guise of alien fighter ships! Do you have a way of uploading this to a national feed or at least to the local news feed?”
“I have no idea if they want this shown-”
“Listen! If they won't let you release this on any official news feed, release it on the web. People need to know what's going on here!”
“What is going on here? What were those. . .people up there on stage? That guy in the crowd?”
“The species getting ready to take over this planet if we don't do something about it. This entire convention was a ruse to attack us. They might try to convince you that what you saw is fake, that I am a terrorist, that you're crazy for seeing what you've seen. Don't believe it! You saw hostile aliens today. Believe your own eyes.” The man glanced around him and then regarded me closely.
“If I try to talk to the station to release this footage they may edit it or disallow it completely. I'll do what I can to release the material on my own.”
“Do that!” I turned to leave and then turned back. “Thanks!”
Having crashed the party and broken the stargate, I had a tentacled miscreant to catch.
11
I turned my shield back on. It flickered weakly and I disappeared for about a minute but I knew it wouldn't last long as the bright lights had drained it down. I used these few moments to get out of the auditorium without being found by the police.
The pain in my arm and hands, had subsided. Or perhaps it was merely adrenaline. I headed down the corridor behind the main auditorium stage and caught a glimpse of a blurred image going through a door that led to the stairwell. As I approached the door I glanced through the door's window. I opened the door, peering up the stairwell and then peered down. Looking up again, I saw a shado
w moving up the stairs. And I heard the footsteps above me. I raced up the stairs toward the sound of the footsteps. Then there were the sounds of scuffling, grunting and cursing after a few seconds and then I heard someone being thrown against a wall. I heard someone cry out. I sprinted on to find once I got to the fourth floor that Darkman had cornered the villain and both had knives in hand, circling each other. The attacker said something in his alien tongue that sounded like a taunting curse. He'd removed his jacket and I could see that on his back he had a machete strapped to his back. Darkman said nothing, focusing on his next move. The Miku lunged at him, moving almost as quick as a blur, his strength fantastic. I realized that he could have killed me in the Lissler Room. Only the security mechs had disrupted that. Hot damn, I wish I had my gun now!
Darkman himself was a capable fighter and deftly dodged his jabs and lunges, matching speed for speed. It was like watching a deadly dance.
I climbed the last stairs to pounce on the Miku when he suddenly lunged toward me with his blade. But this was a feint for he turned as quick as a snake on Darkman, far faster than I'd anticipated after shoving me back down the steps. Darkman took the seeming opportunity of the distraction to drive his knife into the Miku's back but he was a split second too slow and then it was over as the attacker jabbed the blade under Darkman's chin.
“No!” I shouted in a rage, jumping up and hurtling myself into him as he hunched over Darkman, twisting the knife. I nearly knocked him off his feet but he recovered and slammed me against the wall. I felt the joints in my back crack painfully as I slid down to the floor. He grabbed my hair and laughed, ready to finish me off as he brandished the knife but I saw my chance. He had a weapon stashed in a belt pocket strapped against his pant leg. It was a small laser pistol. I snatched it free and shot him before he could cut my throat. He stopped laughing and stared at the hole I'd just made in his gut and then looked back at me in disbelief. I rose, shoving him aside and went over to Darkman. He was gurgling in his own blood, still holding onto life.
“I'm going to call for help.” He grabbed my shirt, his grip surprisingly strong for a dying man. He shook his head. Blood was streaming down his neck and face and pooling on the ground beneath him.
“I've got to get you out of here-”
“It's too late for that! Don't be stupid. But let them. . . know that not all of us desire your destruction. Let them know. . . the truth.” He shuddered and then gathered his strength again. “We've got to take the fight to the stars. We stopped that gate but there is another. There. . .is a U-net team and a base assembled. . .St. Anthony. Go. . .” he gurgled up a clot of dark blood and his breathing was extremely labored. It was distressing to watch him drowning in his own blood and fluids but he held me in a vise-like grip to tell his last message. “Go there, Robert, and meet the others.”
His message done, he breathed his last and crumpled over, staring sightlessly. He still looked human, his bio-engineered skin still intact. I heard a door open below me in the stairwell and a rush of many footsteps coming up the stairs. I stood up and called Vartan again.
“Boss, I'm located in the B-Green stairwell, fourth floor of the convention center. Darkman is down and I have the assailant, a male Miku who-” I heard an unholy wail as the Miku that I'd thought dead struck me hard. Then he slid back against the wall and his body slumped over to the ground.
The pistol I was holding clattered to the floor along with something like the dull clang of the machete.
I could feel my heart throbbing wildly against its cage like a beast trying to get out, blood was spurting in quick rhythmic spurts in time to my frantic heart beating, running down my leg, pooling along the ground by my foot and over both bodies lying in the stairwell. Somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard voices shouting, yelling and painful explosions of noise. The sounds seemed distorted and muffled as if my ears were popping. I saw red and then at the edges of my sight, spots and then explosions of colors blurred my sight. Pain now exploded through my body. I looked down to see a severed arm. And the floor seemed to become the ceiling. And then my brain finally registered what had happened.
And I screamed.
12
I came to slowly, hearing voices far away.
I was underwater, in a healing tank when I finally fully came to consciousness. I could see a group of people just outside the tank, their voices were coming through the underwater speakers installed in the tank.
“Tell Officer Landreth I thank him for what he's done for my team. Darkman was a soldier to the end. He deserves so much more. Thank God he got the bodies before anyone else.” It was Ellen speaking. She was tiny compared to everyone in the room. I touched the heavy plexiglass of the tank. The water was warm and thick like a womb, mixed with healing medical fluids. I took a deep breath from my oxygen mask and felt myself lazily drift and bob in the water.
There was a tiny blur of movement on one of the tables near the tank. It was a marmoset. It grabbed a small banana off a tray from the table, peeled it and began eating. I pointed at it. The marmoset pointed a tiny little finger back at me, threw the banana peel at the tank and dived under the table and disappeared. I shook with laughter. So did Diamond and the others. The little scamp!
The group watched me as I began to examine my surroundings. Ellen was dressed all in white, which from the tank looked slightly bluish. She moved toward the tank and smiled.
“How are you feeling, Robert?” I waved weakly with my right hand. She and two police officers and Diamond were standing there staring at me. I'd never seen Diamond look as worried or distressed as he did now. I turned to look and I noticed, my left forearm was missing. I made an exclamation of shock. The end of it was wrapped. I think my mind went blank for several minutes, simply staring at the stump. I wasn't a whole person anymore. How would I be able to do my work like this? What's gong to happen to me now? Where's my family? What will they think?
“And our main hero is still alive!” I heard someone say.
“You've got to get around to giving this guy a full, good working, non-beta ghosting suit,” said Diamond.
“Believe me, we're working on it, Diamond. We're working on it.”
“Hey, buddy!” Diamond finally waved. I just looked at him, dumbfounded.
“We nearly lost you! Found you drowning in a sea of blood! But they're getting ready to prepare a brand new arm for you. You'll be as good as new.” he smiled. He looked elated, but I wasn't able to appreciate his relief and happiness at my rescue. My distress increased over seeing the stump and I began banging on the tank walls. Ms. Vartan stepped forward and took up a cord that was fed into the tank, pushing a button on it. And I drifted off into darkness.
They'd kept me in the tank for several days, feeding me intravenously and giving me voluminous amounts of blood volume expanders because of the great amount of blood loss I'd suffered.
I was taken to a sterilized, sealed operating room. I was visiting Vartan's secret laboratory sooner than I'd expected. I was on the table, and medical mechs were working on the end of my left arm, amputated just below the elbow. I looked over to see the doctor and a small crew of nurses helping her prepare in a room overlooking the operating room through a large view window while she was getting ready to direct the operation. Another medical mech approached carrying something in a refrigerated case. It came to my table and set the case on a tray and opened it and carefully took out something covered in a hermetically sealed bag. It was a bio-engineered arm. I watched with fascination as they prepared the long and complex process of attaching this arm to my body, grown from my own cells and fused together with metal and even synthetic nerve endings and other components; all the latest technology. As I watched I mourned for the piece of myself I'd lost. It was the first time I really felt that I'd lost something in this fight. Of course, I knew I wasn't immortal but staring at that stump on the end of my arm brought the point to bear on me very painfully. I suppose I'd developed the attitude that luck would always help me
cheat death. It had, but had crouched much closer this time than at any other time I could remember.
“A sea of blood!” Diamond had said. Death had nearly claimed me. Not to mention the pain of the actual amputation. Oh, they'd given me plenty of special painkillers to deaden the pain to a dull thrumming but the memory of it was still there. The head mech that served as the anesthesiologist gently touched my other arm.
“Hello, Robert. This is Dr. Flynn. I'm speaking to you through the head medical mech.” Dr. Flynn smiled and waved through the view window. I nodded. “We are going to put you under now to attach the new limb. You will be under for nine hours. This will be the first of a series of operations, as I've explained before. Please lay back and try to relax,” she said. I did as she told me and felt myself growing drowsy. Soon I drifted off back into unconsciousness.
. . .
“The body of Darkman was hauled away to the morgue along with the corpse of Robert's attacker. While Landreth was able to get pictures and samples of the aliens, I wasn't able to get a hold of the bodies without causing great suspicion,” said Ellen. I could tell she was in consternation over the matter. Her eyes were slightly red.
Several long and complex operations later, I was sitting in her palatial office once again. I wriggled the fingers of my new left arm. It still felt sore and, if I moved it too suddenly, painful. But I was healing rather well considering what happened.
“If I can retrieve his body I will. Is this the newest mission?” She wiped her nose with a handkerchief.
“No. He wasn't sentimental. He would think it silly. We best honor him by carrying on. I suppose it just bothers me that I couldn't do more for him. He intercepted two attempts by loyalists to kill me.”
Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy Page 14
