Blurry streaks drop from the sky in their direction, raining on the power plant in scattered locations. With a massive thump and shake, multiple implosions occur at the tip of the blur streaks while still above the ground. All the buildings and smoke stacks crumble, sucked into central points. The border fence twists while automobiles pulled airwards, compressed and crumpled into a ball with dirt and concrete. The implosive force pulverizes the entire power plant, pulling debris into orbs before bursting outward, raining to the ground.
One of the blur streaks detonates above the lake shore, scooping a massive globule of lake water into the air, creating an enormous pocket in the lake surface. The amount of water drawn from the lake so substantial, the entire lake shifts to that shore causing the fishing boat to rock dangerously and tilt, struck by a wave of water. The implosion then loses its hold, releasing the water, causing it to flush back into the lake, creating a tidal wave in the opposite direction, crashing and overpowering the incoming wave, and sending a water wall rushing at the small fishing boat.
Colonel Kaliber yells, "Look out!"
But his words aren't as fast as the incoming wave. The impact throws the boat out of control, lifting and tilting it under a curl of water. Kaliber grabs Nix and shields him as water rushes over them. The tidal wave capsizes the boat, sending it tumbling on top of Colonel Kaliber, knocking Mr. Nix overboard before submerging. Everything disappears under the water. The first thing to resurface is the bottom of the fishing boat, rocking and bobbing in the choppy spiking clashing waves.
A few illuminating glow sticks pop up, tossed by the tumultuous waves.
In the cold darkness beneath the surface, Mr. Nix thrashes, panicking and confused. Calming, he stills and blows a stream of air bubbles out of his mouth. The air bubbles roll over his cheeks and behind his head, floating to the surface. As he exhales what breath he has left, Mr. Nix turns around and swims upward, following the bubbles.
The moment his head breaks the lake's surface, he gasps to replenish his air. He looks around, but can't make out any details beyond a few meters. Nix can smell and taste dust particles in the air, gritty concrete and soot. The night is pitch black, with not a single light in sight. Not from a distant lake house, no horizon glow of a near population center. No aura from roadside lights. Mr. Nix realizes no artificial light shines anywhere. Nothing outlining the distance or reflecting in the atmosphere. A few dim glow sticks float away in the disturbed water.
Along the nearest shore, the sky fills with a haze of dust. It then dawns on Nix, that is where the power plant's buildings, massive stacks and miles of fence once were but no longer are. That area is nothing but ground rubble and dust of remains dissipating where its structures once towered.
Only the Greys could cause such a clean, precise and complete destruction. Not just of the plant, but the skin spawns inside, including Eighteen. Sickness twists Nix's gut as he realizes he misread the situation. The Greys did not intend take the power plant, shut it offline or use it at a base. They planned to destroy it, and the hybrids with it. The Greys figured out the skin spawns were how humans infiltrated them and, with Grey efficiency, disposed of the spawns the same moment they launched a crippling blow against humanity.
He looks around the water for the boat or Colonel Kaliber. He spots the overturned vessel bottom breaking the water nearby from a glow stick knocking against its hull, tossed by the choppy water.
"Kaliber! Kaliber!" calls Nix but gets no response. "Kaliber!"
Nix hears nothing, excepts the faintest drizzle of tiny particles settling on the water. He swims to the boat and clings to the bobbing bottom.
"Kaliber!"
It has been too long for Nix to hold hope. Kaliber is a trained emergency-ready military man who would protect Nix if conscious or alive. Kaliber must suffer from an injury, because getting tossed off the boat isn't enough to affect a soldier that tough. Nix remembers Kaliber shielding him before being cast off the boat. It is possible the boat struck Kaliber when it overturned, trapping him or knocking him unconscious. Bodies sink in fresh water. Nix knows there is nothing he can do, but he's reluctant to do anything other than look and listen for Kaliber. He doesn't want to leave his man behind.
"Kaliber," Nix again calls out.
Nix checks his waterproof wrist communicator, getting no signal. Committee, military and telecom satellites must be disabled. Which is impossible, unless those shooting stars he saw were satellites. An eerie sickness overcomes him. A meteor shower could not cause damage that extensive. Only the Greys could eliminate every satellite in such a short period.
Fleets of satellites knocked from orbit, burning up on reentry. Shooting stars that one would never wish upon. The Greys destroyed satellites, the seventh largest power plant in the US, and the skin spawns in the region. Mr. Nix then remembers the mapping grid of Grey flight paths encompassing the globe that Captain Nemolopolus sent him. Kaliber informed Nix the skin spawns were migrating and converging around the continent at the same time. This power plant, these spawns, don't appear to be their primary target, but a tiny piece of a massive assault.
"Kaliber!"
Nix listens to his yell echo away to nothing. He can't wait for help. Help isn't coming. Plan A was for Kaliber and Nix to call for pickup from the airport then they were ready to leave. No one will come if he doesn't call. Even if they think Mr. Nix needs help and knew where to find him, Nix set the protocols himself. Rescue will not retrieve any agent or commander in the field on a skin spawn or Grey mission once communication breaks. If Greys or spawns capture or kill units in the field, sending in rescue condemns more to the same fate. Committee agents must find their own way back to base if alive.
Plan B was for Nix and Kaliber to drive back to Colorado. Kaliber commandeered two cars. Eighteen took one, which he drove onto the power plant. The other car Kaliber drove, picking up Mr. Nix and bringing him to the boat. That car is parked by a dock on the far side of the lake. Much further than the nearest shore, opposite lakeside of the power plant, and Nix doesn't have the fob to start it. Kaliber does. Nix knows modern cars won't start without the fob, and can only be hot-wired if you insert a replacement ignition chip, which Nix doesn't have.
Nix assesses his dilemma. He is near the middle of the lake but closer to the power plant. It is six hundred meters or more to the shore, if he swam straight. In this lack of visibility and light, he could accidently swim a curved path, making the distance longer.
Although holding onto the boat bottom is helping keep afloat, he is finding it difficult to tread water in his waterproof deck boots, the water inside them weighting his motion. Nix ponders whether keep wearing his shoes and clothing or remove them. Back when he was a young agent, he trained to swim a hundred meters in his clothing, but curses himself for being old and out of shape. Clothes and shoes can slow his swim speed and increase exertion by twenty-five percent. The six hundred meters to the shore could drain his energy before he makes it there. He'll need his clothes when he gets on land, but if he doesn't make it, the clothing won't matter. He considers holding onto the boat until sunrise, but hours of soaking in water and paddling his legs will drain him more than the advantage morning light will give him. The warm night at least reduces the danger of hypothermia.
"Kaliber!"
Nix gets a memory from his aquatic training. Clothing can become buoyant objects. If he takes off his boots, fills them with air and turn them upside down, the trapped air will make them buoyant and he can put them under his arms. While holding the boat with one hand, he uses the other to tug off a boot. Clumsily, he removes one boot, drain out the water, then pushed it back under water upside down, trapping the air. He puts it under the armpit of the arm holding the boat. Then, Nix reaches to his ankle for the second boot. He yanks it off, but loses grip, the boot slipping from his hand and sinking beyond his grasp. One boot won't do him much good.
He wishes he was wearing a life jacket at this moment. His childhood friend died because of a life jack
et. Trapped inside a sinking duck boat, his friend had on his life jacket, but was inside a roofed cabin. As that boat filled with water, the life jacket caused his friend to float up against the ceiling while the boat sunk. The life jacket made it too difficult to swim down to the cabin opening and out. His friend never made it out, and Nix has avoided amphibious vehicles and life jackets since.
Nix contemplates the buoyancy of his remaining clothing. The shirt can be a life jacket. It is a long sleeve button shirt. He buttons the wrists and the chest buttons to his neck, then ties the shirt tails around his waist as tight as he can bear. He pulls the neck of his shirt over his mouth and blows, pumping up the wet fabric. Pocketing air in the wet shirt, Nix holds the neck hole closed tight against his chest, breathing into it when it deflates.
Releasing grasp of the boat, Nix floats on his back kicking his legs, working his way to the nearest shore. The same side of the lake as the power plant once stood. Now and then, he blows air into his shirt to keep in inflated.
While trying not to get overwhelmed by the long swim back to the shoreline, staring up at the stars and the crescent moon in the sky, his mind tries to comprehend what has just transpired. Grief and loss creep over him. Eighteen has to be dead. Kaliber, too.
Nix needs to stay focused and get back to a Committee stronghold. He can hear the high-pitched splashing of water against the shore. Floating for a half hour, chills sting his skin. The only thing keeping him warm and awake is the constant motion of his kicking legs.
Nix sees the shore, flips over and swims to the edge of the water. He pulls himself onto a cropping of rocks, feet and hands slipping, until reaching the moist dirt shore. The warmer air temperature of land is a relief from the cool chill of the lake.
At peace for a moment, safe and alive, reality comes to him. He is alone, shoeless, laying on decaying leaves in woods so dark he can't see his hand. Mr. Nix needs to get back to Colorado, or at least contact them somehow. Yet walking shoeless in these unlit woods, stepping on sticks and sharp stones he can't see, will tear his soft pruned feet open. His effort to reach land has worn him out. Best to rest and wait till daybreak. He is estimating five hours before morning casts a hint of light.
Nix hears the distant thumping of a helicopter. The volume increases; it must be nearing. He looks skyward for craft lights, but the trees lining the shore limit his view. He looks into the distance where the plant use to be, expecting by now to see blue-red or orange lights flashing from police or company vehicles near the demolished power plant investigating what happened, but there is only darkness. Loud chopper thumping and an engine zoom races over Nix, appearing from the trees behind him, crossing the water, and then banking left toward where the plant stood. The helicopter zigzags over the disaster area, then disappears into the distance as fast as it arrived.
"Maybe now some work crews or police will show," thinks Mr. Nix to himself, deciding the former plant is his destination. He's hoping if crews are there in the morning when he gets to the plant, they can give him a ride to the nearest town.
Nix can't shake the gut feeling something has changed. In ways he hasn't predicted. The world is too quiet. In his whole life, he has never seen so much night. So little light. His wet clothes cooling from evaporation offset the heat of the summer. Nix checks his feet, the pruning going away. Though he is eager to reach the plant, he must wait till there is enough morning light to see.
The Morning After
Chapter 22
Wooded Shore Of Lake Juliette, Georgia.
Mr. Nix sits on a rock in his socks, stretched shirt and pants, tired of drying and waiting. Enough light has broken that the black night has turned to gray, allowing him to distinguish the outlines of trees and ground objects. It is time to move. He walks away from shore's edge, heading inland to where the ground is flatter.
Nix parallels the shoreline, working his way toward the power plant. He hops after stepping on a sharp stick, grits his teeth, and keeps going. The overcast is a gray brown haze of ash and smoke from a distant source. Fires either out of control, or never tended. The rising morning sun hidden behind the haze shines an orange cast on the smoky horizon.
He reaches a power line cutting through the woods. A worn maintenance dirt path runs from utility pole to utility pole. Far off, he can hear a few engines, and an occasional bang pop either from a small explosion, gun fire or powerful hammering against metal. Too distant to be sure of its origin. Nix picks up his pace, anxious to reach a roadway and find a ride. By now, there has to be a few police cars and power repair trucks at the damaged station site trying to determine what happened. With holes growing in the bottoms of his socks, he is eager to get help, and a pair of shoes.
As Nix comes out of the woods where the power lines cut their way to the plant transformers, the line cables coil limp on the ground, snapped. The damage to his destination, what was once the power plant, becomes apparent. Three powdery peaks textured with metal shards, machine chunks and concrete rubble where the different implosions centered; the remnants of buildings, vehicles, and smoke stacks. From Nix's vantage point only the mound tops rise into view, the bases hidden inside an implosion created crater with an elevated lip from blowback. Black and gray coal and concrete powder covers the ground as far as the eye can see. There are no vehicles around, just tire tracks embedded in the dust from two vehicles which pulled up to the crater. A set of footprints lead from the tire tracks to the crater's edge and back. Someone came by in the middle of the night and realized there was nothing to salvage here.
Dread washes over Nix. Vehicles should be here even trying to assess what occurred, taking pictures for insurance. Police investigating for terrorism. EPA testing for toxins, like the coal soot and dust Mr. Nix is standing in with his socks. Why is neither civil servant nor citizen here at the region's main power source?
Nix knows he shouldn't stand in the toxins, but his need to see the complete aftermath of the Grey bombing supersedes his personal safety. He walks through the dust and ash to the crest of the crater's lip. What strikes him is the inert nature of the impact craters. The Grey bombs so devastating and clean, instead of skeletal or partial remains reminiscent of human bombs, these implosion devices sucked everything into nice neat piles, as if cleanup has begun.
Nix isn't sure if it is old age, the magnitude of this devastation, or losing so many agents and soldiers in his life, but grief, dismay and solitude wash over him. The faces of the dead he so quickly moved beyond in the name of duty surface and swirl in his brain. Tomas Seventeen, Eighteen and the sixteen prior agents surgically altered who never made it out of the Colorado facility. Colonel Kaliber, General Hargus and Hargus' Black Op soldiers who died long ago on failed missions led by Nix. The dozens and dozens who died hunting and confronting the Grey's skin spawn assassins. Nix's mind, unable to bury them any longer, turns to his soul for help. He stands on crater's edge, looking up at the sky brightening with the rising sun.
After a long moment of silent reflection, Mr. Nix picks up a small chunk of rebar protruding from the ground. He squats and draws a cross in the dirt with the rebar. Centered on the cross, he draws a star of David, with the tops and bottom pinnacles on the cross vertical, the side indents aligned on the cross horizontal, and the cross center in the middle of the internal hexagonal. He then draws a circle around the whole thing and divides it in half with a yin yang curl. Mr. Nix gazes skyward.
"For those I stood beside, fell behind, and forge on for, I find my purpose, gauge my efforts, and see my reflection in their beings. I owe to those that I become better than myself. With their loss, I struggle to not lose faith in gains, not lose sight of what should be, not lose who I am. Help me, God, never forget them. Keep their spirits present, so their sacrifices do not pass away with their lives, but remain as a foundation for the future. Give me the strength to go forth."
He bows his head for another moment of silence, then turns around, walking the outer crater edge and across the dust covered flat. Two sets
of tire tracks lead away from the plant. Nix follows them, hopefully toward a road or civilization.
Nix hasn't prayed for thirty years. For a time, he tried to replace God with the practicality of purpose. But seeing a sample of what lays ahead for humanity, the obstacle before him for the first time feels insurmountable. So many lives sacrificed getting the Committee's cause no further than this, Mr. Nix feels compelled to ask for help. Whatever happened last night, he will need all the help he can get.
At the edge of the black and gray dusted ground, asphalt and dirt take over. Nix follows the access road that leads away from the power plant. He stops, removes his filthy torn socks, tosses them aside with everything else beyond repair, and continues barefoot.
Rambling Man
Chapter 23
Country Road, Nowhere, Georgia.
The sun breaks high noon in the sky, beginning its hourly descent. Mr. Nix steps are slow and careful along the roadside. The asphalt too hot for his bare feet, the berm too pebbled for quick movement. His shoulders sag from the weight of an apocalyptic night followed by an aftermath morning.
A rumbling approaching from behind, Nix turns to see what comes his way. He spots a vintage pickup driven by a man so old Mr. Nix looks young in comparison. Nix waves frantically to the truck, the brakes squeaking to a stop.
Hand rolling down the passenger window, the old man hollers "Ain't ju know ya got no shoes!"
"I know. You mind giving me a lift?"
"Don't mind giving a lift none, but I mind ja' gettin' in my cab with them there pants. They's so dirty, hogs'n be embarrassed to waller with ja'."
Nix looks at his pants and feet. Not only are his feet coated black and brown, but the pants up to the knees are stained with the same shades. The dirt stained through the fabric.
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