11: SUCCESS AT LAST
The phone on the small night stand softly rang twice, and paused. The third time this occurred Millie Schotner stirred from her deep slumber. The fourth set of rings brought her back to consciousness, and she fumbled for the receiver.
“What is it?” She wearily demanded.
“You left instructions to be notified the instant something happened with the portal Master.” Came a nervous reply.
That woke her fully. “There’s been activity?” She eagerly questioned.
“Yes my Queen”
“Well, what is it?” She ordered with haste.
“You should look out your window upon the grounds.” The voice trembled.
She instantly jumped out of bed with a quite youthful spring for one so old, and rushed to look out her window from the penthouse of the HQ building. There below in the remaining lights of the complex she could see that a very large perfectly circular hole in the ground existed where her amusement park once thrived. It had to be well over a mile wide, and had even swallowed up a small portion of where her HQ building itself had once stood. The depths of the hole in the ground were inky blackness, though she full well knew what lie deep down in those dark recesses.
‘This is it!’ The old woman thought.
Quickly she spoke into the phone again, “It worked! Call all our people, and have them meet me in the main control room immediately!”
“Yes my most magnificent Master.” The voice could barely contain its excitement.
She arrived in the main control room of Dreamland within ten minutes, and Mr. Fielder and the others were already eagerly awaiting her.
“Have any of our people been able to access the catacombs?” She shot out instantly.
Fielder let a big grin envelop his face as he proudly answered, “We have a team in the base of the spire as we speak Master.”
Millie squealed with delight, and even did a sort of round about dance move. “YES!” She shouted out.
“My most dark Queen.” Fielder interrupted her celebration. “We should move quickly, as the authorities are back, and in force.” He pointed to one of the large view screens around the room.
There was a reporter outside the gates of Dreamland giving a synopsis of the day’s events at the park. Millie watched as the fire trucks had first appeared that afternoon, with smoke billowing from the HQ complex in the background.
“Turn up the sound Fielder.” Millie commanded.
“The county fire marshal has even threatened an emergency court injunction to gain access to the park, while the Dreamland Corporation insisted that their internal fire department has everything under control. After several hours of tense negotiations, the county fire department was still not allowed access to the scene.” Then the video switched to a night time view from a security camera on a local store some miles away from the park. “We have this exclusive footage from a security camera near the Dreamland Park from about an hour ago. It appears as if a massive explosion occurred near the same complex of buildings that the fire earlier had been reported in by an automated 911 call.” Suddenly the whole night sky lit up brightly from an enormous sphere of light centered in the Park, and then just as quickly the light was gone.
The female reporter went on, “Strangely there have been no reports of blast damage from any localities near the explosion, nor any reports of a shock wave at all. We have had no response from Dreamland Corporation concerning this event, leading several authorities to speculate whether this indeed has something to do with the well-known contest that is being held there at the moment.” After a second or two of dead air time the reporter announced; “We are receiving a live video feed from our local affiliates.”
The scene changed to an aerial view from a helicopter over the park. The gigantic perfectly round hole in the ground came into sight as the searchlight from the craft swept over it. “What’s this we are seeing Jim?” The reporter asked into her microphone, and then went on. “It appears that the blast has left an enormous crater in the Dreamland Park. Good lord! Look at the size of that!” The searching light beam swept over the still intact HQ building right next to the huge hole, and then over the smooth round edge of the crater. As it began to probe the inky darkness of the pit, a tiny reflection of light sparkled from far in its depths. Millie and the others in the control room knew this was from the crystal tip of the spire.
“Contact our team in the spire Fielder. Have them check for functionality immediately.” Millie commanded.
“Yes Master.” Fielder then talked into his headset briefly. “They have power and are on the lift approaching the cathedral now.” He reported.
“Yes!” Millie exclaimed. “Have them check for pedestal activation, but they are not to transport.”
“Of course my Lord.” He acknowledged.
Millie continued watching the news coverage.
“There appears to be something happening from deep inside the crater at this moment.” The reporter blurted excitedly. The view from the aircraft’s camera showed several flowing beams of light shoot up from the depths, and then the helicopter turned away and left the immediate area over the pit. “Did you see that Mike?” The lady reporter off camera almost shouted. “It appears that something, or someone is firing some sort of beam at the news chopper.” The camera view changed back to the newsroom, and the reporters started to speculate as to what was going on.
“My Queen, our team reports full functionality of the portal.” Fielder said with glee.
Millie already knew this from the video though. “Have everyone prepare for immediate departure!” She half shouted, and a chorus of cheers went up from everyone there. “Mr. Fielder, if you would be so good as to gather my things for travel.”
“Of course Master.” He bowed.
Another man spoke up, “My lady, the sheriff’s department is demanding access at the main gate.”
She spun towards the man, “Have our native security stall them as long as they can, but make sure all of our people are on their way to the transport structure immediately.”
Millie turned to leave and then abruptly stopped. She pulled a metal tube about the size of a water bottle from her shawl, and tossed it to Fielder. “Oh, and since there is no longer any need for subterfuge; please take the transmutation injections as soon as possible. I wish to see my Andorians in your beautiful natural forms again.” An even more raucous cheer erupted from the others.
A knock on Millie’s door drew her attention away from her packing a small suit case.
“Enter.” She pushed a button on her nightstand console.
A tall hirsute creature with bright yellow fur, wearing a familiar yellow jump suit came into her room. She looked at it strangely for a moment before recognition came. “Fielder? My you look marvelous! I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. It has been so long.”
The ape-like being took a spin as if showing off a new fashion. “Ta dah! In the real flesh my Queen. Oh it feels soooo good to be free of that stinking human form.” Fielder growled deeply with relish, then quickly tried to make amends. “Um, your present form excepted my Lord.”
Millie looked at him with derision, “I know this body easily passes for a human, but you know full well I am not!”
He bowed his head with respect. “Forgive my ignorance Master, it has just been far too long being imprisoned with this primitive race.”
She nodded and finished packing her things. “I know, I know. What has it been? Sixteen centuries?”
“Almost seventeen my Queen.” He said as he saw her other few suit cases waiting nearby. “Just these here?” He motioned to the luggage.
“Those and this one is all.” She affirmed.
He frowned, “Not much after so long.”
“There’s nothing here of real value after all.” She mused. “We should hurry though. Make sure General Koko and h
is team bring all the purge devices with them, and have them destroy any data about the devices. We don’t want these humans wrecking our plans.”
“Yes my Lady.” Fielder spoke softly into the headset he always wore, and then grabbed up all of the luggage and headed out the door. Millie followed closely behind.
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Jackie Welsh heard some of the commotion from outside in the hallway, and though she wasn’t fully asleep, nor had she been in quite a while; she was instantly alert at the noise. There was no way she could know what time it was, yet the muffled shouts from the corridor seemed to be out of place. Something was going on, and she hoped beyond all hope that it was a rescue in progress.
Jackie knew she shouldn’t be overly optimistic about the chances of that, but it was a sight better than the awful fatalism that had been trying to penetrate her mind. Her messenger of this hope had not been back to bring her meals to her since that wonderful note she had so quickly eaten. Jackie thought that the young woman might indeed have gotten caught, but quickly pushed the idea out of her head. That sort of thinking quickly led down that dark path.
Then several more muffled shouts resounded. Jackie hit the secret ‘play’ button in her mind, and the song ‘Rescue Me’ started playing for her alone, or at least she thought only she could hear it. Little could she know, that at that instant her husband Michael started to hum the same tune as he tried to fight off the excruciating pain, and delirium.
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As Millie and Fielder entered the massive base to the spire, a loud cheer went up from the seventeen other bright yellow haired Andorians eagerly waiting inside. Millie performed her Queen like wave, and this brought even more shouts of bravo. General Koko came forward and bowed, “My Lady we must hurry. The native security we left at the gates has quit, and the last report from them stated the Feds were here.” He quickly reported. A worried look crossed her face. There was nothing to stop the humans from descending to the Grand Chamber, and now that the catacomb lockout had been defeated, it was a straight path to the spire.
The General then offered, “I will personally take my best men, and greet them. It will buy enough time for the rest of you to transport safely.”
Millie smiled warmly at the beast’s loyalty, and she took his mammoth paw in her frail old hand; patting it. “Meet us on Regulus four General, and don’t wait too long to transport. You are far too valuable to leave behind on this forsaken rock.”
General Koko motioned for a couple of the apes to follow him, and they all unslung the assault rifles from their backs, as they exited the spire. The rest of the apes followed Millie and Fielder to the waiting disk.
On the fairly long walk to the center of the spire’s base, Fielder told Millie that he was still listening to the human’s news broadcasts, and they were reporting some very strange phenomenon occurring worldwide. It seemed there was a null gravity vortex that has appeared over Mexico City, and off the coast of Malaysia the sea was rapidly vaporizing into the atmosphere. There were also a number of strong earthquakes happening in various locals.
“Perhaps the purge device is even much more powerful than we thought.” She mused, and then picked up the pace. “Well it sucks to be on Earth. We have no time to lose.”
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Jackie was still hearing much commotion, when suddenly the outer cell door was flung open, and several rifle barrels pointed in. This was followed by a man in a bullet proof vest that had three big letters stenciled across the front; FBI.
After he quickly scanned the small cell, he shouted. “Another hostage here!” The gun barrels were lowered, and the man behind the first came in with some bolt cutters, as the first man took guard just outside.
“Don’t worry ma’am, were going to get you out of here.” The man said the very words she had been rabidly fantasizing about hearing for days.
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High above the giant perfectly circular hole in the ground, the FBI helicopters were searching the depths with very bright spot lights, and every conceivable sensor they had available. The spire was their main focus so deep down in that impossible pit, and suddenly more of the beams of light shot upwards from it, followed by quite an impressive light show of sorts. At just about the same time the Homeland Security SWAT team was entering the Grand Chamber.
The large expanse of the chamber seemed empty at first, and then from the shadows of the tunnels at the opposite end, the SWAT team heard a deep reverberating growl echo. The growl increased in volume until it was quite loud.
“Stay frosty team!” The leader commanded over their headsets.
“What the hell is that?” One of the members voiced with angst.
From out of the dim of one of the tunnels a bright yellow ape came running at the team extremely fast, as it was howling that ferocious growl they’d been hearing.
“FREEZE!” The team leader yelled as hard as he could, but his voice was slight compared to the thundering yell of the ape. The ape didn’t slow down, and it was half way to the team.
“Alpha team, AJAX!” The leader yelled into his mike.
Just as the men’s rifles began to bark and spit their deadly projectiles, the ape suddenly leapt high into the air, far too high to even be possible. This made the men miss their mark from the first burst, and before they could adjust their fire; several assault rifles opened up from the tunnels. This fire was extremely accurate and raked almost the entire team. Men screamed as they went down, and their body armor didn’t seem to be stopping anything.
High above in the FBI helicopter they listened on their radios to the whole event.
“PULL BACK! PULL BACK!” More automatic rifle fire. “TEAM DOWN! We need help!” Another several bursts of shooting. Men screaming in agony. “It’s like the planet of the freaking apes!” A growl of viciousness from some sort of wild animal; the likes of which none had ever heard.” “Help us!” More shots. “It’s not going down! ARRGH!” Then the team was silent. A scant few minutes later the object deep in the pit once again emitted some light beams, followed by a brief burst of golden light.
Fractured Worlds (Book 1 of the Fractured Worlds Trilogy) Page 11