My cape is pulled off from behind and a hand wraps itself around my neck, and then I feel a sharp object press to my back. The soldier moans as he struggles to drive the knife into my back, but it won’t go in. Two soldiers in front of me move back, creating enough space to fire. I grab the hand around my neck, jerk forward, bending my knees slightly, and I throw the hand, and the body it belongs to flies at the two soldiers in front of me. Their shots kill the soldier before he hits one of them, then I fire a plasma blast at the other, making a big hole through his chest. The force of the blast knocks him down right after the plasma had gone through him. The soldier on the ground tries to get up, but hot plasma hits his side, vaporizing half of his stomach and waist through. I turn around, a small black ball with tiny blinking lights rolls to a stop between my feet. Shit! It’s a grenade! I throw myself back just as the grenade goes off and I activate my force field shield. I hit the ground on my back, face up to the clouds. Bright blue light flashes past me at the speed of sound.
I spring up, no damage, my shield protected me. I look ahead, the four soldiers at a few meters away start to shoot at me. I raise my hand and the light-shield expands from the forearm part of my suit and covers me from the projectiles. For another three minutes, they continue to turns, taking turns to reload. After a while, they stop, but I remain behind the shield. After a few more seconds, I retract the shield and see one of them with a launcher, raised toward the sky. He fires and five rockets whistle up to the sky, spreading out. These grenades cannot kill me, but will sure do enough damage to get me captured and stripped of my bio-suit, and then I will become just like them, fragile, and just a bullet to the temple will get the job done. I could let my force field take all the hit, but that much blow will drain my bio-suit of power, and I have no idea what awaits after I’m done with these men. The rockets from five different positions descend toward me. I raise my gun and fire two shots. Two rockets explode in the air and my gun hisses when I squeeze the trigger again and again. The gun is out of juice, and I was stupid not to take at least an extra power-cell with me. I drop my gun, turn and run, glancing over my shoulder from time to time to see how close the rockets are.
The rockets are getting closer and my heart is pounding. I am afraid. But even though the rockets scare me, I still know that no matter how this go, it ends with me proceeding into the pyramid, leaving the four soldiers so-dead corpses behind.
When I turn, they turn. I run here and there, as fast as I can, while the four soldiers stand there, waiting for the rockets to take me out. I see a gun beside a dead soldier, I swerve toward it. The rockets are just behind me now. I dive for the gun and roll on my back. The rockets are now a few meters away from me, all faced down at me. I release a force blast at the ground, and it thrusts me up so high. The rockets are going to turn and follow me, but all I need is for one of them to get close enough to hit the ground. One of rockets touches the ground and explodes, catching the other two and all three rockets explode beneath me. I sail through the air for a moment and then begin to fall. My eyes find the soldiers and I fire. Bullets go through their heads. One immediately after the other, their bodies slump to the ground, but I continue to shoot till the gun clicks and clicks. At a few feet from the ground, I let out another force blast, jerk up a bit and come down easy on my feet. I walk on toward their corpses, pick two guns and proceed into the pyramid.
Entering through the main door, three thuds fill the air in a lasting echo and two bullets hit me on the face and one on my chest. For a moment, my rings heavily, but the bullets don’t penetrate, they bounce off. I shake my head as the pain fades, I shoot the soldiers that fired the shots and move on. The deeper I go into the pyramid the more it appears like the inside of a ship. Something about the design feels familiar.
I walk through a long passage, the walls are made of solid metal. The passage leads me into a three hundred feet deep room. Steel walk-way spiraled along the wall from the top to the bottom, and steel cross-overs that run across the empty space between. I have no idea where to go from here, so I take a minute to evaluate the situation. Two bullets hit the wall behind me, and then more bullets. For another five minutes, I exchange fire with a group of soldiers. I kill them all.
Nothing will stop me from reuniting with Hanther.
I randomly choose a path and move along it. I climb a stair, turn a corner, climb another stair and turn another corner. I have no idea where I am going, I just let my gut drive me. I go through a door that leads into a hallway. On the other end of the hallway are two people, a boy and a girl. They can't be more than eighteen, and they are unarmed.
They begin to walk toward me as if coming to attack, but they are just kids and they are not even armed. I lower my gun and slow down. I squint, trying to figure what these kids are up to. I’m a threat, and they know it, so unless they are a pair of dumbasses, they undoubtedly have a plan, I just have to figure what it is.
They are coming faster. The boy strikes a blow into the air, as if aiming to hit me, but he is far away, and there is no way his clenched fist can hit me from that far. I am wrong. An invisible force hits me so hard it sends me sprawling back a few meters before I stop. I roll up, ignoring the pain in my back and chest, and the tingles in my right knee. I try to explain to myself what just happened.
Humans are older than arbitrons by several million years, but our technology is way way ahead of theirs, and even we, have no means of doing what this kid just did without an enhancement, like a handheld weapon or a suit. How did he do it? My mind winds back two years earlier, when there were rumors of new advanced specie emerging from the human population, and then the news faded, and everything about it was forgotten. Seeing this kid do what he did, I know now that the rumor was true, and the evidence must have been covered up. I get up, guns no longer in my hands, I dropped them when the force knocked me over.
The two kids continue toward me, a little faster now. The girl suddenly vanishes and the boy starts to run. I start to run too. I find one of the guns that fell out of my hand and kick it with the tip of my boot-toe, making it fly up, I grab it without breaking speed and fire at the boy, but he deflects every shot by swiping his hands at the air. Something hits me from behind, knocking me off my feet toward the boy. He clenches his left fist, and it ignites in flame, he pulls the flaming hand to his back and rocks it forward as if throwing a ball. A fireball shoots from the hand and hits me in midair, sending me back again. I hit the floor and the gun flies out of my hand again. I activate my force field to keep the fire out. In seconds, the shield is covered in flame coming from the boy’s hand. I get on my hands and knees, covered in sweat, trying to breathe. The fire stops. The boy stands over me, grinning down at me. I turn off my shield and throw myself at him, my shoulder to his gut. I take him off his feet and slam his back to the floor. He groans loudly, air knocked out of his lungs. I kneel over him, about to punch him to death or sleep, whichever comes first. He raises his left hand and sends a telekinetic blast at my face, I dodge it, push his hand aside and squeeze it hard till I hear his wrist bones break. He screams in pain and raises his other hand at me. A hand grabs me from behind and yanks me off him. I hit the floor, slide and stop. I get back up in time to see a ball fire ball flying at me. I roll away and draw my knife. I get up and run at them, now beside each other. The girl tries to grab me with her telekinesis, but I swerve here and there, dodging her grips. The boy sits up and uses his one uninjured hand to shoot fire at me. I throw my knife through the flame and dive for the gun on the floor. By the time the fire clears out, the girl is down on the floor, my knife in her chest. I take the gun and shoot the boy before he can throw any more fire at me.
I remove my knife from the girl’s chest and shove it into its place just below my waist. I look around, trying to come up with a plan in case I have to take on more people like them.
This place have sublevels, but I can only hope that the meeting is not holding in one of the sublevels, but rather up here, where I can easily find
Ra Argadus. I hear footsteps approaching. I take a peek from the corner and see two armed soldiers coming. I stay quiet with my back on the wall. The first soldier comes out of the corner, I hit the handle of my gun to his face, and he drops cold. I immediately grab the other guy’s gun and yank him up over me with it. He hits the floor, wincing with his mouth opened, wanting to scream, but the sound barely comes out. I take his gun and clasp my hand on the shoulder. I lift him up with the grip, making it a lot more painful.
“You gonna tell me where the meeting with the aliens is holding.”
“Aint telling you shit.” He blurts, his teeth covered in blood. I tighten my grip on his trapezius more, and I feel his shoulder bone cracking within my grip. He screams.
“O––okay, I––I’ll tell you. The meeting is holding in sector C room number eight.”
I frown. I have no idea where that is. “Where? This floor or below?”
“This floor, this floor.” He says with his teeth clenched.
I let go of his shoulder, he drops and stumbles, I grab his arm and yank him up as he falls. “You’re gonna take me there and for the sake of your mother, you will take me exactly where I want to go.”
He nods. I release his arm. He leads the way and I follow. I know putting him in front could get him killed, then I would have to get someone else to take me there, but I intend to keep him alive as I may not find another person as cooperative. We go on and every time we meet armed men, I shoot them down. As we move from hallway to hallway, I keep praying we don’t meet anyone like those kids. I see a door with ‘Sector C’ above it. The soldier opens the door while I lurk behind him. In the corridor are five human soldiers and the two arbitron soldiers that came in with Ra Argadus. I see three grenades in the small bag on the waist of the soldier that led me here. I take two. I remove the pins and toss them across the floor to where the guards are standing. I grab the soldier’s arms and dive out the door with him as the grenades go off, I save him.
I look at him, his hands on his ears blocking out the bam. “You better run,” I say. He shudders to his feet and runs without looking back.
I get up and drop the gun in my hand. By now, the human soldiers are certainly dead. But the arbitron soldiers on the other hand are not near that easy to kill, not with a human-made grenade. I push the door slowly. As my eyes see the inside, hot plasma and innium bullets fly at me. I duck and pull myself back away from the door. I take a deep breath and count; one, two thr–– I dash into the room and release a force blast at the soldiers. The force throws me back, but I roll up as soon as my back touches the floor. The soldiers are knocked down, stunned. I move to them before they can recover, take one of their guns and blast them dead.
Finally, nothing stands between me and Ra Argadus.
The double door to the meeting room is barely holding now. I throw my foot at the door, one of the two doors fall off and the other opens. I walk in. In the room is Rainbird, Ra Argadus, the Vice President of the United States and two guys in military uniform that I don't know. Entering the room, with the five of them hiding in one dark corner of the room, I feel like death. On the table is a lit cigar. I pick it up and shove it in my mouth. One of the few things I’ll miss when I’m gone, the cigar. I inhale with the cigar hanging in my mouth, I make a small opening on a corner of my mouth and let out a gush of thick white smoke. I remove the cigar and tap it till ash falls from it and scatters as it touches the table.
“Cyders Kaige.” Says Argadus, staring at me like I’m a ghost. “You are supposed to be dead.”
“I know.” I put the cigar in, inhale deeply and put it out again, thick smoke follows, flowing toward them, but disappearing before it gets close. “You see Argadus, normally I would start asking questions, so many questions. But I happen to be in a rush to get off this planet, and I need you in the ship. So we either gonna do this the easy way or the hard way, the choice is yours. But I beg you Argadus, choose the hard way.”
With the look on his face, I can tell he was in on the conspiracy against me, but I'm not surprised, I never liked him anyway, and although has always pretended to like me, because of Hanther, but I’ve always known he’s a deep bastard.
“Mr. Vice President,” I say, smiling, “doing shady deal with aliens, why am I not surprised?”
I drop the cigar and kick the table away from the center of the room, the screeching of its stand dragging across the floor briefly filling the room. I move toward them, going to get Argadus. I expect him to fight back, not hide in a corner like a coward and wait to be taken. Surprisingly, Rainbird steps forward. I stop.
“What now kid?”
“You want Ra Argadus, you’re going to have to go through me.” She says.
The voice, the words, the confidence, I’ve seen it before in the hallway. She’s not dumb, she meant what she said. Shit! She’s one of the advanced humans.
“Well well.”
I raise my gun to shoot her down, two of the chairs in the room fly at me and the gun flies out of my hand. I activate my force field before the chairs can touch me. The gun hits the force field shield and bounces back at me, I grab it. Without hesitation, I fire at her and she deflects every shot and at the same time throwing things at me with her mind. A strong force smacks at me, sending me into what's left of the door.
Rainbird, she is way better than the first two kids I battled. If I am going to take her down, I’m going to need to come up with a plan fast. I take two guns from the floor beside the dead soldiers, I throw one at her and charge toward her immediately. She deflects the gun and before she can settle, I throw the second gun, she deflects it too and by the time she is ready to focus on me, I’m already in front of her. She raises her right hand, I grab the hand, push it to her side and grab her neck. I roll to her back and I kick the back of her right leg. She drops on her bottom, my fingers still around her neck.
“Don’t make me kill you.” I say, with my teeth clenched.
She breathes in and out, her chest rising and falling, trying to catch her breath.
“Ra Argadus is a guest on my planet,” she says, struggling to get the words out. “And I am responsible for anything that happens to him while he’s here. Hurting him will severe my relationship with the people he represents.”
“And what relationship is that?” I ask. Then it occurs to me. I have known there is this evil deal going on, but I haven’t bothered to find out what the deal really is.
“It’s classified,” she says.
“Yeah? Classified my ass!”
Four tentacles grow out from the back of my suit, one clips to her forehead, one to the back above the neck and two go to the sides of her head. I begin to download her memory. Ra Argadus tries to make a move, I raise a gun at him and he stays down.
Five minutes later, I’ve learnt everything Amy knows about herself, even those she can’t remember, also everything she knows about the arbitrons and their mission here, but she doesn’t know much about it, she doesn’t care, as long as she and her kind are not going to be involved.
They call themselves Mutants; people with advanced genes. When her father discovered what she is, he kept her isolated through her childhood, believing he was protecting her. When Amy reached the age of eighteen, she decided she wanted more than being kept away from the world, and when her father refused her what she wanted, she lost temper and tore the man apart with her mind. She covered the story and took over her father’s business. When she discovered there are many others like her, she searched for them, found them and brought them together to help them.
After years of hiding from a squad set up by the government to find isolate all mutants away from the normal human population, they decided it was time fight back. They were ready for war. That was when the arbitrons showed up. They intended to conquer Earth, but they feared they may have a hard time conquering the mutant population, so they decided to make a deal. Ra Argadus offered to provide everything needed to terraform Mars plus wealth, Amy agreed, and everything w
as delivered. The Mutants are migrating permanently to Mars, leaving the arbitrons to do with Earth whatever they want, and the American leaders, believing that Earth has already been lost, are bargaining for a city on Mars.
Mars has been terraformed, and every Mutant on the planet is beneath my feet, in sub-levels of this structure, this spaceship, getting ready to fly to Mars.
I stare at Ra Argadus, he knows that I have learnt everything Amy knows.
“What do you want with Earth?” I ask. He looks down. Whatever it is he’s hiding, there is no point hiding it anymore. I know way too much now, and he’s going to try and kill me for it. If he tries, he will fall.
“Project El-Trion,” he mutters.
“Project El-Trion! You’re going to destroy an entire race of sentient life forms for a project? The project was forbidden by The Elders. Why would you want to go against The Elders and resurrect it?”
“Because it is the only way we can stand up to them, The Elders and they know it.” He says.
Project El-Trion was green lighted by The Elders seven hundred Arbitrus-years ago, and Faoun, one of our planet's moons was going to be home to the project. It had to do with creating living organic weapons with cosmic powers, and have them fight our wars for us, but the project was later terminated by The Elders for unknown reasons. The Elders are the incredibly powerful beings we know absolutely nothing about, but have been directing the affairs of our race since the beginning. Some say they created us, but it doesn’t matter. We are sick of their leadership and we want them gone, but they are so powerful, that despite our super-advanced technologies, we still don’t have what it takes to stand up to them. But this project, El-Trion would change that, and they know it.
Apocalyptic Shorts Page 2
