“Why are we here?” The young Kupano man said with a sleepy voice.
“Kahuku …my young friend,” Makana said as he place his large, muscular hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I suspect that you don’t trust me.”
“No…not at all,” Kahuku was obviously shaken as he said, “it’s just…this was a big decision for me, to leave my mother’s farm undefended.”
“What you did was brave…and we thank you for your courage.”
“I have a crop of Halamula plants that needs tending to…I took a big chance here, Makana. I could be screwing up this year’s harvest because I went on this adventure with you guys. My only concern is that this is taking longer that you said it would. I keep thinking about that crop I should be tending to. I know your goals are important, but my mother and I need to eat.”
Makana looked sympathetic as he said, “This new guy, Bobby the Blade…he’s slowing us down, he’s affecting your confidence. You told your mother that you would be back to the farm in three days’ time…and you’re afraid he’s going to make you a liar.”
“Yes…”
“Well, rest assured…the man is a liar. He came up to us talking some big smack about how he knew these men in Polynea…he said he knew where to get the weapons and ammunition that we have been using to kill our invading enemies with. The truth is…I know these men. I know some of them as members of The Evil. I gave them shelter once when the law was looking for them. They promised me that our cause was also their cause. They want to rid the planet of all those who might come here and end our way of life in these mountains. I also know of another great man, who was born in that monstrous, cancer of a city over there. He tells me about how every year the city and The Hydroplantations engulf more and more of our sacred lands. He has told me how our people become slaves when they go begging on the doorsteps of this invading civilization that came here claiming a great galactic war was about to swallow our planet. These invaders claim to be protecting peace…but they are destroying our people as they rape and desecrate our sacred lands. These invaders turned my father from a proud Kupano man into a whimpering worm. The humans I gave shelter to, they told me of what The Evil are doing…they are trying to steal something precious from a man named Marco who must die for the evil deeds he committed on Ailana. And if we sit here long enough…we might see a great fire burning in that city tonight. However, if we don’t see fire in the city tonight…then we know that our friends have succeeded and will soon deliver a powerful weapon to us. We will use this against the invaders…and they shall be forced to leave our world.”
“And if I do not see fire in the city tonight…”
Makana wrapped his arm around his young friend to comfort him as he said, “then you will know that what you are doing out here is worth any sacrifice that you must make.”
Location: Anodia Storage Complex…Polynea.
Ailanian Standard Time: 2348 Hours.
It was almost midnight. Jhett and Bloke sat in the darkness of their large hovervan, which was hidden among the trees on the hill. They were parked about three kilometers up a steep street that overlooked a warehouse complex, which was surrounded by a large, well-fortified fence. Inside the complex, over a dozen well-armed gang members from the Pilikoa family stood their ground.
A few more minutes of silence passed by before the com on Jhett’s utility belt began to whistle. He picked up the com quickly, and put it to his face. “What’s up?” Jhett said without any hesitation.
The voice on the other end belonged to Bronson Petrilock. He seemed frantic as he said, “Heads up guys, I think someone just sent in the troops!”
“Where are they?” Jhett said nervously. This was not supposed to be happening.
“They’re almost on top of you!” Bronson exclaimed, “And they are pissed!”
Jhett clicked the com to another channel. “Skelter, Strife, Lynch…come in…are you there?”
“We hear you, Jhett,” a tough voice said over the com. “We’re in position.”
“We have company,” Jhett said. “But don’t make any sort of move until I say so.”
“No problem,” The com squealed for a few seconds before it went silent.
Jhett gasped as he realized that over a dozen hovercars, of various models and colors, had suddenly flown out of nowhere and were screeching to a halt in front of the fence that surrounded the warehousing units. With their engines roaring, an angry bunch of gang members, from the Pilikoa family, made their grand entrance.
“Holy shit, Bloke…would ya look at that…” Jhett said as his eyes became fixated on the traffic outside. The gang members drove up to the fence and aimed their small laser rifles into the compound. A few seconds later, a large, dazzling display of sparks flew everywhere and small explosions could be heard. As the gate fell to the ground, the hovercars raced inside, and the night erupted as two rival street gangs engaged in a bitter fire fight.
Jhett’s com began to squawk with Bronson’s panicking voice, “oh my gods, Jhett! Our business dealings here created some bad blood. They brought in reinforcements. They don’t want your merchandise! They just wanna kill anybody who’s in the Kukane family!”
“That means the deal is off and we’re gonna be the last men standing!” Jhett grinned and changed the channel on the com again, “O.K. guys, take out those cars and make those punks get out and fight fair!”
A series of large, blue laser blasts flew in from somewhere outside the compound and blew up the hovercars back ends, causing the occupants to instantly flee their crippled vehicles. The screaming young men were met by a barrage of laser fire from their downtown foes.
The Pilikoa gang members, who survived the initial assault, simply dug in their heels as they took refuge behind their totaled vehicles and began firing back. Gang members, on both sides, were soon falling to the pavement as their bodies were ripped open by laser blasts. Within moments, the only sounds that could be heard were of screams, shouts, and gunfire.
“Cover us! We’re going in!” Jhett yelled into the com as he started up the large hovervan, drove it down the hill and into the compound. They flew past the carnage of what was now becoming a massacre and stopped in front of a large warehouse.
“Blast that door down! Let’s grab Marco’s stuff and get the hell out of here!” Jhett yelled.
Bloke pressed a button on a shock grenade, and threw it out of hover-van’s window. It landed next to the large delivery door and exploded in a flash of blue light. The shock caused the door to fall like a curtain onto a stage.
As they looked into the newly made opening, Jhett and Blokes eyes grew wide with horror.
“SHIT!” They screamed as they realized that the barrel of a large ion blaster was pointed straight at them.
“Get out!” Jhett screamed. They both jumped out of the vehicle just as the gun fired and caused the hovervan’s cockpit to explode in a flash of orange light and sparks.
“Skelter get down here!” Jhett screamed into his com as he whipped out his sidearm. He dropped and rolled behind the hovercar, Bloke was already there.
“What the hell is going on?!” Bloke demanded.
Jhett shouted, “We’ve been set up! We’re being double crossed here! Someone sold us out!”
Laser blasts caused more cars to explode and more gang members to scream in pain.
Jhett shouted into his com as laser bolts flew all around him, “Skelter get down here!”
The com squealed, “We’re here! We’re here!”
Jhett looked up and saw another hovervan making its way into the compound. Jhett’s eyes got huge as he screamed, “NO! Skelter! Look out!”
From the darkness, a black truck was racing towards them at over one hundred kilometers per hour. Jhett’s ears hurt from a deafening crash as he saw how the black truck slammed into the side of the hovervan that Skelter, Strife and Lynch were in.
“NO!” Jhett screamed as he realized that there would only be one outcome from this.
The unprotected hover-van wrapped around the armored truck’s front bumper. Sparks flew from its twisted chassis as it was pushed along the pavement. Jhett and Bloke sat in amazement as laser bolts ripped through the air. Their amazement turned to fear as they heard the sounds of sirens which soon drowned out the sounds of gunfire.
“RUN!” Jhett said frantically, “GO!”
The two cyborgs began running as fast as they could. They made it about one hundred meters from their hiding place before laser bolts cut into them and forced them to the ground.
Jhett gasped, the pain in his legs was searing. “We have to complete this mission! We can’t let those goddamned things fall into the wrong hands!” With a bloody hand, Jhett pulled out his com, dialed in a few commands onto the keypad and pressed a red button. Jhett looked over and saw Bloke lying on the ground clutching his abdomen and bleeding severely from the head.
Jhett realized the enormity of the situation, the button he had pushed hadn’t put Marco’s back-up plan into action. Nothing had happened.
“Explode goddamn it! Something’s wrong!” Jhett shouted as he suddenly realized how bad things had gotten. He pressed the button on his com over and over again.
The com’s screen flashed the words. ERROR…ERROR…ERROR.
“Goddamn it!” Jhett’s mind screamed with panic. “Those geeks tricked us! They found our merchandise! They must have gotten here first!”
Jhett shook his head with frustration but soon became distracted with more urgent matters as laser bolts flew overhead. He heard the gang members screaming as they got shot by their enemies. Bitter rivalries raged as the gang members shot, stabbed and beat each other to death. Many lives would be lost tonight.
Jhett looked up at the smoldering wreck of twisted metal wrapped around the front bumper of the mysterious, black truck. A large, dark figure stood there shooting blast after blast, from a large handgun, into the cockpit. In the flashes of light that accompanied the shots, Jhett could see his comrades convulsing in death as their bodies were blown to bloody bits.
“You…you lucky son-of-a-bitch…” Jhett said to himself as he laid there, trying not to breath, trying not to twitch in pain from his multiple gunshot wounds.
The man in black stopped shooting and turned towards Jhett.
Jhett could not see the man’s face since it was covered in darkness. As he lay there bleeding, Jhett swallowed fearfully as he found himself looking into the man’s glowing red eyes. He felt a pain in the computerized part of his cyborg brain.
“Holy shit! He’s sending me an infrared transmission.” Jhett thought as the pain singed through his skull. “Cyborg telekinesis! Only the most powerful of us can do it! Oh gods I can feel it! I can see things! I can hear things!”
Jhett closed his eyes and grit his teeth in pain as he mentally saw images and heard someone speaking.
“Something big is about to happen on Ailana…something terrible is about to go down…this world, as we know it…is about to end…”
He saw images of the Halawalachek Mountains. His mind flashed to a cavern that was deep inside the mountain where he saw dozens of large, red statues lying around in a pile of red rocks. The cavern seemed to be made up of the red rock, which seemed to stretch for kilometers is a large vein along the side of the cavern.
Deep within his panicking mind, Jhett heard a voice shouting, “Of course there are people who know about the plan! Of course there are people who are trying to stop us, some of them happen to be our former friends! We’re involved in a deadly game of cloak and dagger to determine the future of this planet! Did you think this would be easy? Did you think there would not be players in this game who would do anything to stop us? What do they know about us? Well, let’s see here, they probably figured out how Marco stole our money that we gave him to acquire those weapons…and I’ll bet that they will find out how we stole em’ back! They know about the cave. And they probably know all about the secret experiments taking place at the lab they used to work at before the white haired man had them arrested and imprisoned. Yes, the cat is out of the bag! It’s hard as hell to keep a lid on something like this! Now all we can do is wait and see how the game plays out and plan our next move accordingly! Now are you going to grow a backbone and get in the game or are you going to just sit on the sidelines and watch? Because those that only watch the game will not get the same reward as those that participate…now do as I say, or get the hell out of our way! We have a plan and we cannot wait any longer! We must wake the Prisoners of Paradise!”
Jhett felt as if his brain was about to be squeezed from his skull as he found himself being forced to mentally view images of men and women in lab coats walking around some kind of scientific facility. His mind’s eye saw soldiers being killed in battles, along with policemen in riot gear beating protesters. He gasped as he saw the infinite blue of the Ailanian sky above the deep blue of the Ailanian Ocean. He saw the streets of Polynea ablaze with fires and explosions as he saw the past, the present and the future all melt together into a quickly moving stream of consciousness that made his brain feel as if it were about to tear itself in half.
“Holy shit!” Jhett shouted at the man in black, “We got here too late! The idea was to blast these warehouses to pieces so those punks couldn’t get their hands on the stuff Marco brought here! But those sons-of-bitches stole the merchandise! Oh my gods, we tried to screw them over, and that decision caused us to screw this whole plan up! What is going to happen now? What are you going to do next? Don’t just walk away from me! We’ve put this planet in danger and I gotta know what you are going to do next!”
Sirens began wailing as police cars flooded into the mess of burning vehicles and bloody bodies.
What are you going to do next?!” Jhett gasped and looked at the ground as he heard a soft voice in the back of his head saying, “What am I gonna do next? I’m gonna get paid. I am an individual…I am a Capitalist living only for myself and the money I can make from this world…I’m so sorry that you just happened to be in my way.”
Jhett looked up just in time to see the inside of a gun barrel and a flash of light.
The sirens wailed louder as red lights flashed everywhere.
Taking that as his cue to leave, the man in black turned his back on Jhett, and walked away.
Location: A storage room in the Malakua Tavern…the Go-Go District…Polynea.
Ailanian Standard Time: 2404 Hours.
Agent Charlie slowly walked down the dimly lit hallway with Kenny cowering behind him. Charlie’s thoughts were a torrid, jumbled mess as he tried to sort out the last conversation he had with Jack. The fact that his boss, at the CIA, was not in a pleasant state of mind certainly did not help. Charlie sighed as he remembered how Jack had said, “I guess you heard about how Kalapana let a really big fish just get away.”
“Yeah…what the hell happened there?” Charlie’s mind wrestled with what he had seen in the alley a few nights ago. He swallowed nervously as he thought about how he witnessed that mysterious man in black manhandling the suspect he had been trailing. He thought about how he had not been able to relocate the man and how he would explain it all to Jack without any sense of closure or accomplishment.
He remembered Jack saying frantically, “That’s the problem, Charlie, we have no clue what the hell is going on…anywhere…at all! All I know is Marco Giraudoux is probably light years away and we blew it again. And now the High Senate is breathing down my neck and our jobs are at stake unless we find some bad guys producing a whole hell of a lot of narcotics and bring their heads to them on a silver platter!”
“Sounds like things are getting desperate for ya, Jack…you should try living my double life sometime…”
“Speaking of your double life…what exactly are you doing with it?”
“I’m trying to convince Makula Pilikoa’s oldest son, Awa, to start producing Cutz again so that you can arrest him and become the famous lawman you always dreamed about, Jack…”
“And what the hell is taking you so long?”
“Relax, boss…Awa just has his own methodical way of doing things…first, he needs to do a few things to ensure that he keeps the power he just inherited.”
“What is he planning on doing?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Jack…it’s gonna involve some murder and some mayhem…but when the dust settles and he feels like he is officially the biggest fish in the pond…I’ll find a way for you to hook him and reel him in for all the world to see…”
“That is if my cover doesn’t get blown first…” Charlie thought to himself as he entered the dark room and noticed how the expression on Awa’s face did not look promising. As he took a seat in front of the desk that Makula once ruled his empire from, Charlie held his breath as he watched Awa poured himself a glass of whiskey from a tall bottle. He remained stoic as he poured Charlie a glass and slid it over to him.
Charlie took a sip and mentally prepared himself to remain calm and collected as he said, “Well, Awa…congratulations, all those guys, who you couldn’t trust, thought that Chibu was killed by the Kukane family in retaliation for those three kids he gunned down on the street corner. And since violence begets violence…they went and decided to go and avenge Chibu’s death…and got themselves killed in the process.”
Prisoners of Paradise Page 47