by E. R. Torre
But he could not get free. He could not reach his knife.
The flashing lights grew brighter and brighter and, after one final thrash, the truck driver sank back.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered.
When the police arrived, they found him tied to his seat and the knife on his dashboard.
“Incredible,” one of police officers said. “I thought that tip was surely fake.”
They had gloves on and evidence bags ready. They photographed the truck driver and the knife before taking it, and him, away.
A quick examination of the knife revealed traces of human blood. The blood was eventually linked to three missing women and, once in prison, the driver would admit to other crimes.
This night would be the last he’d travel these lonely highways.
4
On the Chameleon walked until she reaching the Snowdonia National Park and, within it, the Gwydir Forest.
By the time she approached her hidden vessel, her clothing was ragged, ripped, and, thanks to a passing rain, damp. The Chameleon removed the branches and rocks that hid her spacecraft. It was a small vehicle, not much larger than a medium sized car and capable of transporting two passengers. It was built for extreme speed and maneuverability far beyond what any human or its Masters could withstand.
The creature examined the vessel and found it just as she left it three decades ago. She opened its hatch and placed her hand on a panel beside one of the seats. The ship’s controls flickered to life.
Just as she was readying to leave, a rustling came from behind. The Chameleon faced the source of the noise and found a gaunt, middle-aged man standing before her. He had graying hair, brilliant blue eyes, and a perfect set of teeth.
“Thank you, I do not need any assistance,” the creature said.
The thin man walked closer.
“I do not need any assistance,” the creature repeated.
“I know,” the thin man, Elias Vulcan, said. In his right hand was a black blade.
With a threat established, defensive sequences within the creature attempted to activate. Her new programming, however, shut them off.
Vulcan looked over the Chameleon’s shoulder and at the spacecraft before nodding.
“It’ll do,” he said.
“I do not need—”
The elderly man placed his free hand over the Chameleon’s mouth.
“It’s funny how alike we are,” Vulcan said. “But they took away your free will and dumbed you down. In the end, we’re very different.”
Elias Vulcan gently fixed the creature’s damp and matted hair.
“I’m so sorry.”
Elias Vulcan thrust the black blade into the creature’s stomach. The irony of the situation was not lost on him. He saved the Chameleon from just such an assault only a few hours before.
The creature did not react to the attack. It did not experience pain.
“Sleep,” he said.
Vulcan released the blade’s handle and, at that moment, a powerful electric charge roared through her body. The creature fell to the ground as her outer flesh turned black. The charge faded quickly, leaving behind ashen remains which would soon blow away. In a short period of time there would be no evidence left of its existence. No evidence at all.
Elias Vulcan stepped past the creature’s body and stood near the spacecraft. He examined its controls. Over the years, modifications were made, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He grabbed the edge of the door and sat in one of the craft’s two seats. The ship’s outer door closed and the vessel sealed.
Before him was the forest and for several seconds he took in nature’s beauty.
“Goodbye,” Elias Vulcan said.
There was sadness in his voice.
5
For many years Elias Vulcan floated in that spacecraft.
Her orbit was well past the Moon. The ship had enough fuel to take it beyond the edges of the solar system and beyond his Master’s invasion forces. Once the fuel was spent, momentum could take her further still. She could drift on into deep space but Elias Vulcan had no interest in losing himself to the vast, silent seas.
He had nowhere to go.
Nowhere at all.
Through the ship’s sensors Vulcan watched the dying Earth.
Lush, green plains turned dull brown and forests were replaced with deserts. The icy poles melted and the deep blue seas grew dark green as toxic wastes poisoned them.
Vulcan was certain Spradlin failed and Earth would last only a few more years before his Masters arrived and ended everything.
Small spacecraft similar to his journeyed from the Locust Plague mothership to Earth. The ships’ passengers were other Chameleon units. Their numbers dwindled as the mothership neared. To his Masters, it appeared the humans were no longer a threat. Soon enough, and with the aid of powerful magnification from the exterior cameras on his spacecraft, Elias Vulcan had his first view of the invading armada since leaving it all those centuries before. There was one incredibly large ship surrounded by several dozen smaller craft. Traveling behind the mother ship was a compressed metal lattice. Once stretched out, the lattice would encircle the planet like a metal net. It would compress and rotate and, like an enormous garrote, slice through a planet’s surface and expose the valuable minerals hidden below while enormous shovels took the material away.
When the machine’s work was done, there would be nothing left of the planet it was used upon.
Even after all this time, the people of Earth appeared ignorant of this threat. They fought against each other, their wars and the scars left behind from them were all too visible.
Such a waste, Vulcan thought. They race with my Masters to see who destroys Earth first.
Then, just as that thought left Vulcan’s mind, he felt something.
It was like a ghostly whisper in his ear and it rattled through his body and burrowed deep into his very…
…soul.
Vulcan shook.
His head turned and his eyes slowly opened. They gazed directly at Earth and the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. The whispers continued.
Something will happen.
Vulcan could not understand the meaning behind those words.
“Who is this?” he said though there was no one to hear him speak.
It is not like you to give up and run.
The words were projected directly into his mind.
“Who is this?” Vulcan repeated, louder.
This time, there was no answer.
Elias Vulcan straightened in his chair.
Curiosity had him and his eyes could not stray from the Arabian Desert. Stiff limbs reached for the ship’s controls and his fingers hit a series of buttons. He opened the communication systems and listened to signals transmitted from Earth.
A flood of information followed. Vulcan watched entertainment vids and heard the latest music. There were weather and market reports and kids and adults playing vid games with and against each other while nations were on the verge of breaking up and Corporations slowly, inevitably became the source of all power.
Those same Corporations had interests in the Arabian Peninsula, one-sided deals benefitting their bottom line while doing little for those in the scorched lands. Pollution, displacement, and disdain for their religions and history caused many of the desert dwellers to rebel.
This earned many of them, even those who renounced violence, the label of terrorists and provided an excuse for the other nations to station armed forces within their territories. They surrounded the largest cities with enough firepower to start a World War. Yet the corporate war machines held back. They did not enter any of the large cities.
It was almost as if they were waiting for something to happen.
Elias Vulcan’s curiosity was overwhelming. His fingers glided over the ship’s controls and a course was laid out. He pressed one more button and for the first time in two hundred years the ship’s thrusters glowed with life and the ship moved.
>
It gained speed as it returned to Earth.
6
Vulcan’s ship vibrated upon entering Earth’s atmosphere while flames momentarily licked her body.
Elias Vulcan’s enhanced vision remained focused on the Arabian Peninsula and her lands. They were scorched black and red. Large, out of control fires created inky smoke which streamed into the atmosphere. Coastal cities were darkened by pollution and the waters around them were corroded.
Warships patrolled those waters while land locked cities were surrounded by armored vehicles. Neither allowed entry nor exit.
Radio and vid signals originated from a heavily fortified central command base to the west.
Vulcan activated the ship’s stealth features and descended even more.
Vulcan’s ship came in very low to the ground, low enough to see the many tanks patrolling Sada-bir, one of the larger cities of the Arabian Peninsula.
The faint buzzing that brought Vulcan down increased as he approached the city.
Vulcan was shocked to realize there were nano-probes in all the humans, plants, animals, and insects within the Arabian Peninsula. Some nano-probes were active and similar to the ones Paul Spradlin was inoculated with so many years before. The vast majority, however, were dormant and there was only one way they could have been spread throughout so many living organisms.
“They’re in the water supply.”
Vulcan concentrated on the dormant nano-probes. They were like a benevolent parasite, neither needing nor requiring anything from their hosts.
Impossible, Vulcan thought. They are there for a reason. But who would do this? Why?
The ghostly whispers he heard in outer space increased and Vulcan’s attention shifted to one of the tanks and, a mile away from it and sitting on a rock, a female soldier. She was very young –a child- and the heavy weaponry and armor she carried looked far too bulky for her small body.
Unlike the dormant nano-probes found throughout the region, the ones inside her were very active.
Vulcan linked up to them and quietly listened.
They tried ordering the soldier around but she refused their commands. Vulcan marveled at her control. The young girl somehow overcame their programming and, therefore, her mission.
What is the mission? Vulcan asked.
When provided an answer, Vulcan could barely contain his shock.
The child soldiers were ordered to carry nuclear devices into the populated cities of Arabia and, when the time came, they were to detonate them.
The child soldier got to her feet and ran at full speed toward the tank.
“Sada-bir is going hot,” she said over the National Military Communication System. Her words were directed at the nearby tank. “Lock the vehicle down. Now.”
The people in the tank received the message but weren’t sure what to do. They aimed their turret at the soldier but did not fire. Seconds passed and a decision was made.
The tank’s external locks were activated. Sturdy metal spears shot from the tank’s base and penetrated the ground below.
Elias Vulcan looked away from the tank and the running girl and gazed west. Toward Sada-bir.
In that moment, a blinding flash of light lit the night sky and turned it into day.
A bone crunching roar followed and behind it a ghostly wail.
Elias Vulcan’s ship was buffeted by the forces of the explosion. He quickly activated the ship’s safety features just as the first of the hurricane force winds ripped through the area. Sand and debris, much of which came from many miles away, slammed into the ship.
Emergency lights blinked as another, larger wave of debris, remnants of that once mighty city, smashed against his vessel.
Elias lowered the ship until it touched ground. Though designed for the rigors of space travel, the vessel could take only so much force.
More waves of sand and wreckage hit the ship before the winds died down and the world was again visible.
A mushroom cloud hovered over what was once the proud, ancient city of Sada-bir. Under it, Vulcan knew all too well, was a massive crater.
He checked the ship’s systems and found all vital functions in order. Automated maintenance programs would take care of anything else.
The ship’s engine coughed and the thrusters activated. The ship lifted up and through layers of radioactive dust while Vulcan accessed satellites and downloaded real time images of the Peninsula.
Sada-bir was not the only major city in Arabia to go up in flames. Every one of them met their end in this massive, near simultaneous attack.
It was an act of barbarism that defied explanation: An entire people were murdered and their lands rendered uninhabitable.
Elias Vulcan lifted the ship higher into the air and, almost as an afterthought, checked on the tank below. It survived the explosion though it was far worse for wear. He searched for the female soldier who warned the tank crew and spotted her as well. She hid behind a large rock outcrop and, though alive, was injured and heavily irradiated.
If she were a normal human being, the injuries would have been fatal.
But the nano-probes in her body were already working on her injuries. In time, she would be healthy.
Elias Vulcan drew near yet kept enough of a distance so as not to alert her of his presence. He used the ship’s analytic scanners to probe the female human’s body and, specifically, her nano-probes.
He needed to find out even more about them.
He did.
The nano-probes provided some answers to his question.
“It was you who did this, Spradlin,” Vulcan said. “Why?”
7
Two hours later, Elias Vulcan’s ship flew along the perimeter of the Arabian Peninsula.
Radiation readings were extremely high. Anyone that survived the initial explosions would surely die from the fallout.
Vulcan hoped to find and help as many survivors as he could even though the small size of the interior of his vessel precluded him from taking many.
“I will have to make more room in this ship,” he muttered, though it was a job for another time.
His ship’s instruments detected many life forms but they were all Nation Army soldiers housed inside tanks and holding positions just outside the fallout zones. They were there transmitting firsthand accounts of the effectiveness of the attack.
Vulcan pressed on.
Apart from the soldiers in their tanks and those very far –and safely– behind the lines, he found no survivors.
Even stranger, he did not find evidence of bodies or even body parts.
Elias Vulcan was confused and, increasingly, curious about this.
That’s impossible.
He linked to the Net to read up on the events that led to this war. In short order he digested the ebb and flow of recent history and followed the all too human patterns of tribalism and hubris, of hatred and ignorance, which eventually resulted in conflict.
He was surprised by how quickly the war erupted and was left with even more questions.
It was almost as if the politicians behind the attack had been pushed into this action against their will.
With the nukes detonated, there were those in high office who lamented the loss of life yet the victors, perhaps seeking to salve their guilt, already justified their actions. In conflicts both large and small, such people always did.
“Fighting for peace,” Vulcan muttered.
A little later Elias Vulcan again checked the Nation Army’s mechanized units. He found they were all, including the one carrying the young female soldier, in retreat and heading back to the Nations Army’s main base.
Vulcan’s thought of the whispered messages that brought him to Earth.
“You wanted me to see this,” he said. “Why? And who are—”
Vulcan shook his head as the realization hit him.
Hard.
“We’ll talk later,” he said. His voice was barely a whisper.
For now, Vulcan woul
d continue his investigation. He would find out what really happened on the Arabian Peninsula and where her people were taken. And he would find Paul Spradlin.
Vulcan would get answers to his questions.
Every one of them.
8
Elias Vulcan’s ship approached the Nation Army’s main base and found it was in the process of being taken apart.
While mushroom clouds floated in the distance, aircraft filled to capacity lifted off. Radio traffic revealed the aircraft flight paths and, given the encroaching fallout, it was doubtful any of them would return. Other personnel and soldiers, their meager personal effects on them, waited on the tarmac for their flight to leave.
Other soldiers worked on the larger equipment around the base, from tanks and artillery to ammo. Equipment too bulky to fly out was rendered useless by removing or welding key components.
Elias Vulcan landed his craft a short distance outside the base perimeter and behind a sand dune. He made sure it was well hidden from sight before exiting and walking to the metal fence which separated base from desert.
Vulcan felt the high tension electricity surging through the fence and judged its height before backing up. Even to a being such as Vulcan, the electrical jolt from the fence could hurt. It might even be fatal.
Vulcan nonetheless calmly ran forward and at the fence, gaining speed until he was a blur. At the very last moment he skipped twice before leaping into the air. He soared up and up and cleared the fence’s top edge. With a soft thud he landed inside the base and at the rear of one of her larger buildings.
Vulcan searched the area and found a deserted barracks. The clothing he wore was the same he had on when he left Earth all those years before and it needed to be replaced. Within the barracks Vulcan found a Private’s suit that fit him. Once dressed, he exited the building. Few noticed his presence and none questioned it.
Vulcan took in the sights while searching for any clue regarding the nano-probes he sensed within the young female soldier.