JB returned her contentious glare and tried to decide how to reply. It was something he had asked himself over and over again. "Far as I know, I'm completely human… But I got some alien stuff inside me. What y'all just saw, I can't really explain, but them tiny critters are attracted to me like ants at a picnic. Happens every time one o' them gets too messed up for 'em to fix. That's why them aliens are hunting me. I reckon they want their Sawbonites back. An’ the truth is, they ain’t never gonna stop 'til they get ‘em.” He paused and looked directly into LuAnne’s eyes as her eyebrows knitted together in either confusion or disbelief before he added, "Or until they kill me. That’s why I said y'all weren’t very safe with me."
“Sawbo…what?” she asked sharply.
“Sawbonites… Least that’s what I call ‘em. They’re inside every alien I’ve ever come up against. Now, I ain’t sure exactly what they are, but I’m thinkin’ that maybe they’re real tiny critters and real smart. It was probably some kinda freak accident, but they got inside o’ me, an’ once they did, they started fixing me up. Now, I’m just startin’ to figure that them Sawbonites can do way more stuff with my body than their supposed to. An’ I reckon, that's the reason why them aliens want ‘em back so bad.”
LuAnne's expression had only become more skeptical, but her voice grew serious when she said, "Stuff with your body? Like what you did with your eyes?"
"Yep," JB answered. "That there’s only one of the things."
She didn’t reply for a bit, as if she was considering his explanation and reconciling that with what she had seen.
Finally she said, “This is totally fuckin' out there! That thing we hit looked just like the one in the video on Aunt Maddie’s phone.” She stood there, alternating her gaze between JB and the empty spiked bumper as she continued to process everything.
She was calmer when she said, “‘Okay, now I totally get why you were suddenly so interested in Aunt Maddie’s alien video, but so what?"
“Now that's the thing. Them Sawbonites should’a fixed that fella in the video right up. Short of losing its head or bein' shredded into hamburger, it shouldn't have died. Fact is, I never seen one get put down short of major damage... Not ever. 'An I've gone up against enough of 'em to know. But, that’s the reason why I gotta get over to where the body is."
He walked over to where the weapon had fallen to the ground and said, "'Cause, if there’s a better way to kill aliens, I gotta know ‘bout it. An’ the quicker I find out, the better."
She watched JB as he bent down and picked up the strange weapon off the ground.
"Like I told ya, them aliens ain’t gonna give up,” he said as he walked back to the toolbox that was built into the pickup bed. He pulled the lid open and threw the alien's weapon into it where it landed amongst a heap of similar objects.
“What are those?” she asked, as he slammed the box shut.
“Souvenirs… From every close call I ever had. Weapons and other stuff, I reckon, but it don't matter though. Once they die, nothing they leave behind works anymore.”
“But, those guys who were shooting at us… What about them? They weren’t aliens, were they?”
She was looking down the road at where the SUV had been. The shallow pit was still smoking and had begun to sparkle in the light of the breaking dawn; reflecting in rainbow colors from the many places where the sand and rocks had been fused into glass.
“Them folk were monsters of the human persuasion,” he said grimly. “I figured they were gunnin' for y'all. Maybe they ain't leaving any witnesses.”
“Shit! Shit! Shit! How did they know where we were?” LuAnne said, her voice edgy with uncertainty.
“Could be somebody saw us leaving the motel, but it don't matter now."
LuAnne didn't answer, but her expression spoke volumes. She had been mistaken when she believed that things couldn't possibly get worse.
JB gestured to the truck and said, "I think we best get outta here.”
She nodded and silently returned to the truck while JB pulled off what was left of the front windshield, tossing the remaining glass on the side of the road. Incredibly, the upper right side of the back window still remained with all of the blue script lettering intact.
After JB got back into the pickup, he reached over to open the dashboard glove compartment. He had a deep gash on his hand where the glass had cut it, and as LuAnne watched, his wound vanished between the time he retrieved the sunglasses from the glovebox and when he handed them to her.
“They do that? Those Sawbo-thingys in your blood?”
He answered with a slight nod of his head as he handed her the sunglasses. “Here, put these on and keep your mouth shut,” he said with a smile, adding, “that is if y’all don’t wanna eat bugs.”
“What ‘bout you?”
“I aim to keep my mouth shut,” he replied flatly.
“That’s not what I meant. I thought you said you had ‘very sensitive eyes’?”
“I’ll manage,” he said putting Ol’ Blue in gear. He modified his eyes with a second set of eyelids for protection from the dust and debris. The lids were perfectly transparent, and if he had to guess, they were probably equal in strength to case hardened steel. That’s how his little critters rolled.
"Now I'm really sure that going back to Cronlab ain't very smart," she said loudly. She practically had to yell so she could be heard above the wind and road noise.
JB looked over at LuAnne. He had wondered when she was going to change her mind about taking him to CronLab's facility. He yelled back, "All ya gotta do is just gimme directions and I'll drop ya off right here and now!"
"Oh, that's a great offer. Leave me here for the next killer to come along!" she shouted back.
"Come on, LuAnne, just get me close like you promised. Then I'll take ya anywhere y'all wanna go."
"Shit! Do I even have a choice?" she replied even louder.
"I think y'all made a good one," JB yelled in reply, spitting out a bug.
Ol' Blue continued on as fast as present conditions would allow, but it was still a bumpy ride and they were grateful when about forty minutes later they emerged onto an intersection with a paved road. Here, LuAnne hesitated for a moment before directing JB to turn left.
“Are y’all sure?” he asked.
“Uh, huh," she replied and pointed to the reflective marker on the shoulder of the road. "Highway marker right there says so.”
“Y’all sure know a lot ‘bout the roads around here for someone who doesn’t look old enough to drive.”
LuAnne didn’t answer, but JB thought he detected a tiny hint of a smile as he made the turn. Traffic was still light, due to the early hour, but there were a few curious looks from other drivers who noticed the missing windshield and the partially shattered back window. JB kept his speed down to reduce the intense wind and road noise, but it didn't help to dispel the tension between the two of them. LuAnne was not happy that JB hadn’t changed his mind about going to CronLab. Also, the constant lookout for law enforcement, as well as other threats, had them both on edge. However, so far, the drive had been relatively uneventful.
When they came up on another intersection, LuAnne had him turn onto a dirt and gravel service road that took them into the trees. The wooded area around the road grew denser and more forested the further they traveled. He drove onwards; stopping only briefly to argue with LuAnne again about going to CronLab, until she reluctantly continued to provide directions. Finally, they came to a stop at a metal barrier that blocked their way. It was locked with a rusty padlock.
"What now?" JB asked.
"Don't look at me, I don't have a key. You're the one with super powers… Why don't you just break it open?" she suggested sarcastically.
JB got out of the truck and dug around in the toolbox.
"Y'all don't need super powers if ya got power tools," he retorted as he pulled out a portable reciprocating saw.
It took seconds to cut through the lock's shank, but the gate
hinges were rusted shut from years of disuse. JB tried to push it open with brute force, and was able to get it halfway open before snapping one of the hinges off. He resorted to the power-saw again and cut the gate free of the remaining hinge, letting it drop to the ground. He didn't bother dragging it out of the way; he just rolled over it in Ol' Blue and onto what looked to be an abandoned fire access road. One that was long neglected and overgrown with weeds. He kept driving for another several hundred yards before LuAnne told him to park. The right side of the road had a wide shoulder and JB pulled the truck over onto it.
"What now?" he asked.
LuAnne got out of the truck without replying and walked over to the opposite side of the road. He followed her to where she stood, looking down the steep slope that began at the edge of the road. At the bottom of the embankment was a children’s playground. Although, it looked to JB that no children had played there for a very long time. The sandboxes were empty and only the abandoned and broken skeletons of what had once been jungle gyms and swing sets remained.
“They shut the playground down after CronLab completed their building. Chemical fumes were making kids sick,” LuAnne said, answering his unasked question. “Anyway, you go down the hill, straight through the playground until you get to a dry wash. The CronLab building is right on the other side of it.”
“Y’all sure ya don't wanna come? Might take me a while.”
“Are you shitting me? I'll stay here,” she replied brusquely. She shot him a dirty look and added, “'Sides, I don’t have much choice do I?”
“Nope,” he agreed, getting out of the truck.
“Wait! Leave me the keys!”
“Y’all got t’ be kidding,” JB said.
“What happens to me if you get killed? I’ll be stuck here!”
“I ain't that easy to kill. An’ how do I know if give ‘em to ya, that y’all be here when I get back?”
She gave him a wounded look. “Do you think I’d leave you behind.”
He broke a slight smile with raised eyebrows and replied, “Let’s jus’ say I don’t wanna find out. I’ll keep my keys and y’all either wait… Or ya can walk.”
"Asshole," she muttered angrily.
JB ignored the comment, and started down the hill. The ground was loose and he ended up skidding on his heels most of the way down to the bottom of the embankment.
The park and play area was deserted. Nevertheless, he kept to the shadows as he moved cautiously past the old playground to the edge of the dry wash. JB stepped over the remains of a rotted wooden rail fence, probably placed there as a safety barrier, and onto the edge of the dry wash.
The wash wasn’t wide or particularly deep, but it was dotted with large rocks and overgrown with thick, ropy vegetation. On the other side of the gully was a tall chain-link fence topped with military style barbed wire. The fence bounded the rear of the large, single story industrial building and continued around the perimeter of the facility.
He strode down into the shallow gully, threading through the thorny bushes and around a few boulder-sized rocks. The dense brush made for good cover and gave him the opportunity to approach undetected. JB was now in a position where he had a good view of the entire rear of the building and could see that the rollup doors on all of the loading bays were shut and padlocked.
When he reached the far side of the wash, he peered over the embankment looking for any activity. He waited patiently until he was satisfied that it was safe to proceed. Having seen no movement, he climbed up out of the gully and crept over to the fence. Closer now, he saw that much of the fence was rusty and corroded. Perhaps security had ceased to be an issue at some point in the past, but regardless of the reason, there were numerous holes and tears in the section of fence in front of him.
He scrambled through the largest rent in the chain-link that he could find and quickly made his way over to the back wall of the building. Taking cover in the shadow of the wall, he worked his way across the back of the building, hoping to find an unlocked door.
He still hadn't seen anyone or any activity as he proceeded, but curiously, every set of doors he came across was locked from the outside with lengths of heavy chain. The hefty links were threaded twice through each handle on the solid steel doors and secured with shiny padlocks that appeared to be brand new. Both of these observations struck him as being odd, as he could plainly see that each set of doors also had conventional key locks installed. So, why lock a door with chains from the outside? It was a question that he had no answer for. Even so, the extra security had ominous implications, especially since it wasn't likely he was going to find an easy way to get inside. He confirmed this when he found that the last door on the far side of the building’s rear was also chained shut.
This door was a single door, not a double door like the rest, at the top of a raised landing with steel safety rails. The chain ran through the handle and wrapped around the rails on both sides of the landing to prevent it from opening. JB realized then, that these measures weren't taken to keep people out of the building, but rather to keep them in. He was beginning to get an extremely bad feeling about all of this.
He wasn't sure what to think as he made his way down the side of the building, where he now got a good view of the parking lot in the front for the first time. Considering the early hour of the morning, the lot was almost completely full.
“So,” he asked himself, “Where is everybody?”
The unexpected reply came in the form of a loud explosion that blew out several windows above JB’s head propelling debris in all directions. Dodging the flying glass, he sprinted towards the parking lot. As he rounded from the side to the front of the building, he saw two men running. They were dressed in camouflage clothing, combat boots and black ski-masks. One of them was carrying bolt cutters, the other, a large automatic rifle. They hastily piled into an idling, white SUV that was waiting for them in front of the building. Once they got in, the vehicle peeled away at high speed, making for the exit at the other end of the parking lot.
JB reached the front of the building and almost tripped over the body of a Hispanic man sprawled on the ground. He was dressed in a nondescript brown gardener's uniform and appeared to have been shot several times. The man was clearly dead, so JB didn’t stop, but kept going, holding his breath as clouds of noxious, black smoke began to fill the air. He reached the building's entrance a moment later and in the same instant he heard the hysterical screaming. It was then he knew for certain what the chains were for.
He ran to the building’s entrance, where the two large plate-glass doors had been chained tightly shut. Behind them were scores of panicked people crushed up against the glass, desperately trying to escape the growing smoke and flames. The frantic crowd was screaming for help, their voices raw from yelling and choking on the contaminated smoke from the burning agrochemicals. When those trapped behind the doors saw JB approach, there was a burst of sudden hope in their eyes. In that moment they thought that they would be miraculously saved.
JB didn’t hesitate. He modified his hands into massive sledge hammers intending to shatter the thick, glass doors, but then a second, more powerful explosion tore through the building before he could act. The concussive force of the blast was only slightly dissipated by the body mass of the people jammed behind the glass doors directly in front of him. The doors and the people were wholly annihilated, consumed by the expanding fireball. The explosion caught JB and flung him back fifty feet from where he had been standing. He came down hard behind a car in the third row of the parking lot. All the cars in the first two rows had been shredded into unrecognizable scrap by flying chunks of concrete and burning debris from the powerful blast.
JB should have been killed instantly, but his Sawbonites had gone to work autonomically, as if they had sensed the danger moments before it had actually happened. Although they wrapped him in his full body armor milliseconds before the explosion, it wasn’t nearly enough to prevent JB from suffering grievous injuries,
including broken bones and extensive internal injuries. His Sawbonite armor had prevented the shards of glass and metal shrapnel from slicing him to bits. The encasing material was the only thing that had held him together and kept him alive… If only just.
The Sawbonites attended to him with precision and speed, performing the medical miracles they were designed for and many that they weren't. The tiny alien robots remanufactured JB's shattered bones, regenerated his damaged organs and shredded tissues. They also regulated his hormone levels and suppressed his pain while they rebuilt most of his body. It took less than six minutes for them to finish the task and for JB to regain consciousness. Once he had, he was already processing the horrific implications of what had just happened.
He was amazed to still be alive, once again saved by his Sawbonites. His physical damage was healed, but nothing could ever erase what he had witnessed. His perfect memory would always preserve the terrified expressions and the last look of hope on the faces trapped behind the glass doors before they had literally evaporated in front of his eyes.
The strong emotional reaction he experienced from witnessing such wholesale murder was a far cry from the man he used to be. Back when he was expelled from middle school, the principal had called him a sociopath. JB didn't know what it meant at the time, and of course he didn’t care anyways. However, now he was a different man, one who was struggling to keep his thirst for revenge from clouding his judgment.
The explosion had completely leveled the building and noxious plumes of thick, oily-black smoke were seeping out from the shattered heap of the wreckage that remained. Small fires were burning all around, scattered amongst ragged chunks of concrete, shards of glass, shattered metal and other debris, some of it human.
He looked for the SUV, but it was nowhere in sight. Even with his enhanced vision, it was impossible for him to determine where it had gone. He was certain that the men he had seen driving away were the ones who sealed the building and blown it up. But why? Why kill all of those people? he asked himself.
Coming here had all been for nothing, he thought. Whatever secrets the alien's corpse might have held had been vaporized along with everything else. He didn't pay any attention to his armor when it dissolved away… He was still remembering the look on every face behind those glass doors.
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