Skyfire

by Vossen, Doug

  Shut the fuck up. Not now.

  “We’ll make it work, Chief.” Jack began getting lost in his thoughts.

  “Warrior 2, Green Dragon 1-3.”

  “Warrior 2,” said Jack.

  Please, no more shit about the casualties. I don’t give a shit if we have to do multiple trips. I thought saving motherfuckers was the whole point of being in the Army!

  “Roger Warrior 2, we’ll do whatever we have to do to accommodate any casualties you find. Fuck it, right? If we lose that part of us, we lose everything.”

  Jack and Callie began methodically repositioning the dead bodies and gore as far away from the children as possible.

  My respect for them just shot up 100%. I always thought no one in the world should ever have to bear witness to shit like this. It’s not healthy. It’s even less healthy to get used to it.

  “Karl, Ron - here’s what I got,” Trent said in a loud whisper. “Here’s us in this hallway by the IMAX theater in the middle of the museum.”

  “I stopped going to IMAX theaters when I saw Dr. Manhattan’s giant blue dong in Watchmen,” said Karl. “It ruined IMAX for me.”

  “Thanks, Karl. That was both relevant and appreciated,” said Trent. Two minutes without verbal diarrhea please? “Anyway, here’s us in the middle. Here are the stairwells heading to the top floors. From here to where we need to be, I think the best route is up the main stairwells at the front of the museum, then through the dinosaur exhibit on the fourth floor, heading west until we get to this southern stairwell, between ‘Wallach Orientation Center’ and ‘Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals.’”

  “That Herbert Milstein. Such a Mensch. Mitzvah’s out the dick-hole, if memory serves,” said Karl.

  Ugh. This is the only way he can get through shit. “Right. Anyway, once we get to this stairwell, we walk to the top and go methodically down every hallway, office, archive, and laboratory. No stone unturned. With Mark Kerr’s magic fairy dust orb we can detect whatever we need to. Room by room, inch by inch.”

  “Dude, remember Mark Kerr? He’s all fat now and I think he sells cars,” Karl said.

  “The ‘Smashing Machine’ documentary is one of the saddest things I’ve sat through in my entire life, but let’s move onto more pressing matters. Legate Ronak, you ready?”

  “Indeed I am, Captain Hughes. Let us proceed.”

  They walked out of the Hallway of Small Mammals, back toward the main entrance. Moonlight danced through the musty room’s floating dust. Ronak’s sphere cast dynamic shadows throughout the areas they walked.

  Was that a dream? I keep thinking I see those shadowy shaking figures from my dream. Fuck, I don’t even know what’s real anymore. I just want to get through this. Do my part, then go back to finding Emma.

  “You OK?” Karl asked.

  “Far from it, man. You?”

  “This shit’s worse than that strip club in that back alley in the Czech Republic.”

  “Dude, that shit was in some old lady’s house,” said Trent. “It was awesome.”

  “You ended up having a two-hour conversation with a 96 year-old Hungarian immigrant who spoke English because she worked as a whore in London during World War II.”

  “Masha was the shit!” said Trent.

  “I got my dick sucked by a girl allegedly named Jenny who told me she loved me!”

  “And I bet you had a special connection,” said Trent.

  “Yeah!”

  I don’t even know if this idiot is joking.

  “Gentlemen, which stairwell shall we ascend?” asked Ronak.

  The group stood silent for a moment.

  “Let’s take the eastern stairwell, whichever side is less blocked,” said Trent.

  “How do you know?” asked Karl.

  “Captain motherfucking Picard!”

  “Are you kidding me?” said Karl. “How can this possibly be related to your faggot-ass nerd shit?”

  “There was this episode where Captain Picard and the ship’s doctor, Doctor Crusher - who was hot as fuck for her age - were stranded in the wilderness. The plot twist was that they could read each other’s minds.”

  “Why could they read each other’s minds?” asked Karl.

  “They were imprisoned or something.” Trent hated being interrupted.

  “What makes them read each other’s minds in jail?”

  “Dude, who fucking cares? That’s not the point!”

  “Sounds like a weak-ass fucking TV show, dude.”

  “ANYWAY,” said Trent. “Doctor Crusher was getting butt-hurt that they couldn’t find a way home or whatever, and the Captain had to make a choice at a fork in the road. He chose left, or who cares, but the point is he made a choice.”

  “Then what?” Karl seemed legitimately interested.

  “Well then the beautiful, intelligent, fire-crotched Beverly Crusher asked him why he’d chosen that path, and he made up some bullshit reason. But she could still read his mind.”

  “Oh shit, nigga!”

  “Anyway, she calls the Captain on his bullshit, and one of the most important leadership lessons came out the back end. I use it to this day, for better or worse,” said Trent.

  “I’m all in, spill it.”

  “I’m paraphrasing, but here it is. If you don’t know the answer to something and you need to make a choice, use the best information available at the time and make a choice. Act confident no matter what, like you know it as gospel. It’s the only way to get people to follow you when you have no idea what the fuck is going on.”

  “And how often was that for you?” asked Karl.

  “Almost every fucking time anything happened on a deployment.”

  “No plan survives first contact, I guess,” Karl acknowledged. In an odd way, he and Trent naturally fed off each other.

  “Now we need to not die so we can save this curry-smelling ass-tard and get everything back to normal. Then you can go watch my faggot-ass nerd shit on Netflix, as you so eloquently put it.”

  “Good luck with that, Hughes. I’m glad your gay ass finally watches football though.”

  “Fantasy football, man. It’s like a slave auction combined with Dungeons and Dragons and the stock market. It’s the best. I don’t feel bad - these assholes make more money than I will ever see in my life.”

  “Jesus Christ. You are such a - ”

  “Gentlemen, now that we’ve determined our route, should we not proceed according to plan?”

  “Legate Ronak, my apologies,” said Trent. “We often dwell on the stupid to get through the unfortunate.” We must look like children to Ron’s species. Whatever, they have a fucking millennium on us. We’re gonna be good to go when we reach that point. ‘Murcah or whatever, I guess.”

  “Trent, that is quite alright,” said Ronak. “I find it refreshing. People in my society lack passion about anything.”

  Shit, this thing is calling me by my first name. He likes me. Why is my first answer always “kill?” Fuck. I know. Time to be honest with myself.

  “I like your idea, Hughes,” said Karl. “Let’s use these stairs. We’ll probably just die anyway and be some statistic on the TV news no one cares about.”

  “Excellent. Let’s keep moving,” said Trent. My dad came to this country with nothing. To get a green card he agreed to register for the draft. After he signed the papers he asked, “Where is Vietnam?” That’s bullshit. It’s all numbers to everyone who didn’t participate. “We can discuss the finer points of some hot-as-fuck blonde in a miniskirt talking about us on Fox News when we’re dead.”

  “I bet it’ll be with some bullshit statistics from a ‘think tank’ that she reads off a teleprompter. And Poorly,” said Karl.

  “Yeah, but with our luck it won’t be some chick in her twenties. It’ll be some awful fifty-five year-old former prosecutor from Georgia who’s a fundamentalist Christian, wearing whore makeup and a pants-suit designed for moms who want to go back to work after shitting out two equally awful kids,” said
Trent.

  “I know, right? Shit’s crazy, man,” said Karl.

  They were passing through an area of particularly nasty looking carnage. “Sweet, look at this,” said Trent.

  “Ron, anything alive here?” Karl scanned the top landing of the stairwell with his tac-light.

  “Negative, Major McMullin. We can proceed along our planned route.”

  The grisly scene continued throughout the dark passageways of the second floor.

  Stairs are still open. Good. “Let’s keep moving to the third level,” said Trent.

  “Yep,” Karl said.

  They stepped over bodies strewn about the stairs. Each passing sight was more macabre than the last. They were becoming numb to it. It’s like every car bomb ever created exploded in this one fucking building. Jesus Christ. Is THIS our nature?

  The third floor’s main stairwell landing was just as bad as the second’s. They continued to the fourth floor. Barricades were everywhere – tables, chairs, bones from dinosaur exhibits – anything that could be used, including human body parts. It was gruesome. The entrance to the main dinosaur exhibit had the highest barricade, about sixteen feet, impressively obscuring everything beyond it, all the way to the extravagant vaulted ceilings.

  “Damn, what now? Get out the map,” said Karl.

  “This way. Not Captain Picard-ing right now, I promise.” Trent pointed toward a less impressive exhibit labeled “Ornithischian Dinosaurs.” This hall of armored, horned dinosaurs had been one of Trent’s favorites when he was a kid. The creatures had inspired his sense of curiosity, made him wonder how they came to be, why they weren’t around anymore, what nature could make possible. My dad watched me try to sketch a shitty Stegasaurus for an hour in here. Never thought this place would be my own personal hell. This fucking sucks. The memory is ruined forever.

  Trent felt his ankle grabbed. He lost his balance, falling face-first on the floor, barely breaking the fall with his right forearm. “Fuck! Karl!” The grip felt the same as when the soldier had attacked him at Firebase Liberty. Screeches and pained groans followed as his assailant clawed up his back. Without hesitation, Trent grabbed the assailant’s arm, brought it down elbow-first onto his right shoulder and rotated to position himself on top of the attacker.

  “Oh, shit!” Karl ran towards Trent.

  “MotherFUCKER!” Trent had adrenaline working for him. He stepped over his attacker’s left leg and placed his right knee on his belly, pushing aside the man’s flailing arms. He then snaked his right leg along the man’s abdomen and mounted him. What now, fucking shit-heel? You’re haircut’s stupid. Trent entered a trance–like state. He instinctively postured up and punched downward with alternating strikes. Left. Right. Left. Left. Right. FUCK! MY GODDAMN HAND! Trent transitioned to alternating elbow strikes. He kept going for what seemed like forever. The hissing and screeching was now masked by gurgling blood.

  Trent was back in the dusty red compound with the dead goats and Jameson. I’m losing it. Am I dead! Is this what happens before you change? You start seeing your own personal nightmare?

  “Baby, go into the room at the end. Stay in the present moment. Don’t let your mind wander. You must keep going. Don’t doubt yourself!”

  “Emma, where the fuck are you? Is this real?”

  “Concentrate. The shack. We’ll work together.”

  “How did I get here? Why am I in a uniform? I don’t get it!”

  “GO, TRENT.”

  Trent’s stomach dropped. He was terrified. He knew this shack. It was from his past, but he couldn’t pinpoint it in his present state. “Baby, I’m in a uniform. Where’s my rifle? I can’t do anything without a fucking rifle!”

  “Honey, you need to shut up and go into that shack. Trust me, baby. I love you.” Emma’s last sentence had an odd metallic tone, similar to the low-pitched hum he’d heard during the first blackout with Jessica.

  I’m doing this. I’m doing it. Trent saw that the small padlock on the shack was undone. He took a deep breath and slowly pushed the door open. Inside it was pitch black. Fuck it. I’m scared to death of heights and being shot at, but I jumped out of planes and ran into gunfire. This ain’t shit. Right?

  “Go in, Trent,” Emma once again prompted.

  Trent stepped inside. What the fuck? This room is bigger on the inside than on the outside! He shook his head and tried to refocus. It didn’t work. Finally, something clicked.

  “This is my next thing,” Trent said.

  “What do you mean? You’re on the right track,” said Emma.

  “This is my next thing. I haven’t been this scared in fifteen years. It almost feels… good. I know what I need to do now.”

  “That’s why I married you. Good luck, baby.”

  “Wait! Don’t go! I need you to-”

  “GO!” Emma’s voice dissipated into a metallic, low-pitched hum.

  Trent felt a jolt of adrenaline he hadn’t felt in years. He proceeded into the large, open room. Dark, featureless, vibrating bodies hung from meat hooks. They swayed back and forth, reddish moonlit ash falling on their skin. Some of the bodies lay on the ground. Upon closer inspection, they weren’t just shady and dusty. They had the same fractal appearance as the golden-spiral pattern hovering above the financial district. Holy shit. I get it now. I’m in their goddamn world! Why would an advanced intelligence’s world look like a mix between a meat packing plant, Iraq, and a warehouse?

  Trent heard moaning in the back of the room. The moonlight barely illuminated his path. He slowly stepped over the dusty fractal bodies lying on the ground and approached the moaning. This is so familiar. Why can’t I place it? The moonlight presented the outline of what appeared to be a bed with someone lying in it. I can’t see anything! What the fuck am I doing here? Emma!

  “I need light! Please, give me light!” Immediately a beam of dark red light shone on the bed. The bed was still obscured by dust, but was now slightly visible. A man in a traditional white Arab dishdasha lay in the bed with leather straps binding his wrists and ankles. The straps were tightly fastened and ran underneath the bed to prevent the man from moving. The man writhed in pain, whimpering. No recognizable language came out of his mouth. He appeared to be sixty to seventy years old. His teeth were rotted and the stench of his bad breath filled the room, complemented by the smell of the soiled bed and excrement-covered clothing. Holy shit, I remember now. I’ve been here.

  A man tapped Trent on the shoulder. He spoke Arabic. Trent, for some reason, understood perfectly. “What will you do this time?” the man asked.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m you,” replied the man. He was in his forties, dressed in pristine clothes designed to show his wealth. He had the arrogance of a sheik who simply patronized the most recent invading army.

  “Fuck no you’re not! You’re that guy who lived in the ‘1 March’ neighborhood of Baghdad who was torturing his own father!” OK, be like Emma. She’s a complete hippie. Keep an open mind. This is happening for a reason.

  “Silly American. We went through this a decade ago! This is not torture. This is the compassion of Allah, the one true God of Heaven and Earth. I feed him and give him a place to sleep. He’s crazy. What else do you do with crazy people?”

  “That’s right. Your name is Sheik Abdullah. We meet again. How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been fine, Lieutenant Hughes. How is New York City? Not so good right now, I’d imagine…”

  This motherfucker. “Careful, Sheik Abdullah.”

  “Or what? You’ll do nothing again?”

  “You do realize you’re inflicting pain on this man? How can you do this to your own father?”

  “My friend. We discussed this before! Come inside, we’ll sit down and have tea and discuss this.”

  “Fuck your tea! This man is a human being! Your own fucking father! What the hell is wrong with you? How can you profess to be a servant of the God of Love?”

  “He is crazy.”

&nbs
p; “He is deaf, blind, and can’t speak! That doesn’t mean crazy! I bet he wasn’t before you got to him. You turned him into this because it was convenient. Don’t fucking talk to me about God’s compassion, you little shit! There IS no god!”

  The man stared back at Trent.

  Trent’s eyes began to tear. “I’m taking you with me. I might not know what the fuck to charge you with, but your ass is going to Abu Ghraib, scumbag.”

  “On what authority you stupid, young, weak American? You have nothing. This is how we deal with those who should be dead! This man is lucky I didn’t kill him when he became useless! He knows the way of things!”

  The old man urinated in his clothing. He wailed like a child.

  “You fucking piece of shit. Abdullah, he’s in there! YOU made him into this! Your own father!”

  “OK, Lieutenant. So what are you going to do?”

  So we’ve distilled it down to this, have we? Trent looked around. He looked at his hands. He looked at the uniform he wore. He looked at the sheik and then again at the man writhing in pain on the bed.

  Emma returned. “Honey, what is the right thing to do? I promise you’re not a monster like you think you are. You have a chance to fix this. Time is NOT what you think it is. Don’t worry about what everyone else will think. Don’t worry about your career. Don’t worry about your soldiers not thinking you have what it takes to do what’s needed. Don’t worry about anything except the compassion you should have for this poor, poor man. You know what you need to do. Harness your demon and become an angel for this man. Turn your curse into a blessing. I love you, baby.”

  “Abdullah, you’re coming with me. You know that AK next to your closet on the right side of your sitting room? The one that’s irresponsibly locked and loaded and leaned against the TV where you play your shitty Syrian MTV? Yeah, well, you shot at us with it, and now you’re going to jail forever because I fucking said so.”

  “You amateur! I’ve seen you be crueler than THAT, Trent! Come, now! Put your money where your mouth is!”

  Fuck. I’m doing this, aren’t I?

  “Trent, honey, you KNOW what you need to do. Harness your demon. This is your chance.”