“Where the fuck are we, Jaxx?”
Jaxx wanted to shake his head, but in his current predicament, he was bound by the law of physics and the law of someone choking him. All he could do was shrug.
“You don’t know?” He threw Jaxx across the room.
Jaxx landed with a thud, his back hitting hard on the floor. He rolled over, took in much needed air, then coughed.
“Where have you brought me, Jaxx?” Fox kicked Jaxx in the ribs, not waiting for an answer.
Jaxx let out an “Oomph!” and curled into a ball, covering his head. Another kick landed on Jaxx’s stomach and Jaxx lost his breath entirely, gasping for air. The wind had been knocked out of him and his eyes nearly rolling back into his head.
Fox tittered, widening his stance, then brought back his leg for a more intense blow.
For the umpteenth time, Jaxx’s emotions gathered in his belly and welled. The kick came swiftly and he caught it, shaking with frustration and anger. Enough was enough. He transferred all of the energy he had and threw it outward, flinging Fox head over heels onto the floor. Fox’s face took the brunt of the fall.
Jaxx stood, hands in fists by his side. His face was screwed up with emotion.
Fox wiped his lip and spat out a tooth, then stood slowly, eyeing Jaxx the entire time. “You made me bleed Jaxx. I like to bleed.”
Jaxx lowered his gaze. “I’m not a weakling like you think. If you come any closer, you’ll understand the power I yield.”
“You act like a pussy, Jaxx. I’m not scared of pussies.” He took a step forward, then lunged for Jaxx, swinging his arm around for a nice fist to Jaxx’s face.
Jaxx crouched and brought his hands up, grasping Fox’s punching arm and spun Fox off his feet, throwing him across the room again. Jaxx ran toward Fox as Fox slammed against the floor. He took a flying leap, landing a knee on Fox’s chest and a fist to his nose, hearing the snap of a broken nose penetrate the air. Fox’s nasal bone shifted to the side, clearly broken in a couple of places, covering his mouth and cheeks with more blood.
Jaxx backed up, observing a beaten-up Fox. Something he’d never seen before, something he thought he’d never witness. He put his hands up, breathing heavily. “Don’t try anything else, Fox.”
Phsssst!
A door slid open. The smell of roses filled the room. Startled, Jaxx spun on his heels, readying himself for whatever else was to come. A woman stood at the door. “Who are you?”
Jaxx dropped to one knee, clutching his hand to his heart. Rivkah was near, his mind raced to find her. He caught a glimpse of her in a ship. A ship he’d never seen before. She was with another woman.
He glanced up at the woman at the dome’s opening. She was his height, toned, wearing a white dress with a metallic rose pinned at the shoulder. Trees, purplish-pink in color, were behind her.
He narrowed his eyes. “Where is she?”
The woman motioned with her arm to somewhere off in the distance past the trees. Somewhere he couldn’t see. “She is here.”
Fox rose.
Without looking, Jaxx pointed at Fox. A strange wind kicked up and the translucent dome vibrated.
Fox was lifted into the air and hovered, looking paralyzed.
Jaxx lifted his chin. For some reason, he was more powerful with this woman in view. “Take me to Rivkah.”
“As you wish.” She gestured to Fox. “But first, you must find a truce between you and your brother.”
Fox dropped to the floor and Jaxx tilted his head, his jaw slack. “My brother?”
“You are blood.”
Fox shook his head violently. “No. We’re not. I met this son of a bitch in the Secret Space Program.”
“You had two different parents who weren’t your blood parents. You aren’t who you think you are, Jaxx. You and Fox aren’t human.”
25
Charlotte, North Carolina ~ Earth
Drew about pissed his pants. The tank’s turret turned, the cannon lowered, aiming directly at Drew and Mya and the car they were stopped in. He glanced in his rear-view mirror. For a second time in this car, foreign troops were behind them, running in their direction, getting closer. Buildings were on their right and left. No escape.
An enemy troop took aim.
“Duck!” He threw an arm over Mya, pulling them both below the dash.
A shot rang out. Cannon fire. Machine guns cracked the air. Another cannon. His car shook. He looked at his hands, seeing he was still alive. He looked at Mya. She was still alive too, leaning her head against the door’s armrest, blankly staring at the sky through the windshield.
He looked around, half-expecting his car would be riddled with bullets, a hole through it from cannon fire. It hadn’t been touched. He peeked above the steering wheel. The tanks turret had shifted and shot another round over their car. He looked behind him. The man who had aimed at them was on his side, the rifle resting against his body, and blood oozing out of his head, the foreign troops racing around to take cover.
He put the car in reverse and put his foot on the gas. The tires spun, then took hold, and he gripped the wheel, veins bulging on his hands, his knuckles turning white and steered the fastest way out of here – the only way out of his predicament – straight through the battle.
A thud and his car bounced up and down, driving over the dead soldier that tried to make Drew “dead” only moments before.
His heart raced, something he was getting all too used to without the weed soaking through his body. He hadn’t had a bong hit in days.
He turned the wheel, pressed the brakes, spun the car around, and shifted his car into drive. Mya closed her eyes and a tear streaked down her face. Drew wanted to console her, tell her everything was going to be alright but he’d be lying.
He pressed the pedal to the floor as bullets sparked against the street and sidewalks all around him, enemy soldiers falling like dominoes. He sped forward and turned down a street, then floored the breaks.
He went flying forward, the car honking from his chest’s impact against the wheel. “Whoa! Back up, back up, back up.”
He reversed it, foreign jeeps with gunners coming his way, shooting this way and that. He checked Mya. The seatbelt kept her strapped in. Safe.
He spun the wheel, putting himself on a different street, then zig zagging around abandoned cars, shot to shit, some burning, some already half rubble. A dead, burnt up corpse was in one.
He bit his lip. He and Mya would be like that person if they didn’t get out of here fast.
He hung a right on West 4th Street, never in his life thinking he’d be driving this fast down any inner city.
Jikoooosh!
Jikoooosh!
Two jets flew low, way too low. A black one in the lead, a gray, United States military one on its tail. Then the world shook. The black jet became a fire ball, splitting in two, a wing splintering off, a poof of smoke and debris billowing toward the sky behind several buildings.
The other half careened toward Drew.
“No, no. You gotta be kidding me.”
He put his arm in front of Mya. The jet fell faster, toward them. He took a right on Gesco Street. The earth shook from the jet’s impact, a cloud of fire sucking in the air behind them, a plume of smoke blowing outward an instant later.
He hung a left on State Street, skidding out, nearly hitting a parked-car, no doubt abandoned. A right on Tuckasagee Road. He curled around the long bend, an inner smile overtaking Drew. I-85 was in view. Once on that, he’d be heading out of town and to Michael Anderle at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.
For a minute, everything was calm, except him. He looked down at Mya. She was asleep, probably from the trauma, and was resting her cheek against his arm. He placed his knee at the bottom of the wheel, keeping the car straight.
He flicked on the radio.
To his surprise, someone was talking.
“...they aren’t sending help, people. To any of those listening to me, then listen to my words ver
y clearly. They aren’t sending help. Really, you think they are? Then, tell me, where is our allies? Shouldn’t they have been here by now? Didn’t they see the Chinese coming? We’re losing a piece of our country every single day and the rest of the world sits idly by, laughing their asses off. Our interim President, Jefferson Kennedy, says he is still in communication with our allies. He suggests they are sending their forces, but I’m saying if they aren’t here already, they ain’t coming.” It was Bob Larson, the neo-con, racist asshole who claimed he wasn’t a neo-con or a racist. He was still on the air?
Drew merged onto I-85, not a driver in sight. Hopefully it would stay that way until he got into Tennessee. He didn’t want lines of cars with freaked out people slowing him down.
“The Chinese and the North Koreans are making mincemeat of our military. Half of our guys are on bases overseas, no doubt trying to get to us right now. That’s what I was saying for years. The United States isn’t here to police the world. We were supposed to stay out of foreign entanglements and affairs, just as our first President, George Washington, practically yelled at our nation to do. And, what are we up to? Crapping all over his intentions, over his genius, and over his years of service to bring us freedom...”
Drew clicked off the radio. He checked his gas.
“Half-full?”
That wasn’t going to get him to Tennessee.
26
J-Quadrant, Solar System ~ Flood of Dawn, Callisto
Jaxx stared open mouthed at the woman before him. She was lying. She had to be but he couldn’t get a read on her if she was. He shook his head. “That asshole is not my brother and I’m human. Plus, this guy has been trying to kill me for I don’t know how long.”
Fox stepped forward, bringing up his fist, ready to pound Jaxx to the ground. And if the woman got hurt trying to break it up, so be it.
“Halt.” The woman walked into the dome. “There will be no more fighting.”
“Like you can stop – ” Fox fell back, an electrical current running through him like a stun charge from an IPR-8. It faded as quickly as it came. He rubbed his head, grunting, sitting on his butt, too pissed to say anything.
The woman addressed Jaxx as if Fox wasn’t in the room. “Your brother is a bull-headed nitwit with a hell curdling life mission to spill as much blood as he can. It’s not his fault. He was a good man, just like you, Jaxx. This nastiness has all been trained into him. All his Atlantean leanings have been weeded out of him. Unlike you. You’ve known for some time that you’re different…”
“I’m not Atlantean.” Jaxx said, not really knowing what the difference between an Atlantean and a Human. The Atlanteans had been gone from Earth for so long; perhaps they’d had time to evolve. For all he knew, their DNA had taken a left, instead of a right. Even if that were the case, they were essentially of the same species – homosapien-sapien.
Fox tried to stand.
The woman thrust her hand out, using a strange energy to root him to the ground.
“God dammit. Let me up.”
She shook her head. “My name is Liberty. I am the Master of Flood of Dawn of Moon Atlantis Alta or in your terms, Callisto.” She put her hands in prayer position. “And, to answer your internal question, Jaxx, you and Fox are indeed Atlantean. The difference between Human and Atlantean is subtle, and with your advance translation skills, I’m surprised you missed that in the Stele’s and hieroglyphs. The human race has been genetically manipulated by another species and a similar manipulation continues to this day with the chemicals in your foods and liquids, but we won’t get to that now. The Atlantean race, to which you were both born, has not been manipulated. We are still pure. You both, on the other hand, are more powerful than the Atlanteans, for a great power has been bestowed upon you. You carry human chromosome two and human chromosome seven.”
This just wasn’t making sense. Jaxx and Fox were Atlantean brothers, yet partly human as well? Then, who were his real parents? “A great power has been bestowed upon Fox and me?” asked Jaxx.
“You have much to learn, much to decipher. In time, it will come. Now, for you two,” she pointed an index finger to Jaxx and her other index finger to Fox. “You have a connection you haven’t quite understood and when you felt it in the past, you dismissed it as something else entirely or ignored it altogether.”
Fox shook his head and gave a hearty laugh. “You’re full of shit, woman.” He supported his body with his hand on the ground and pushed himself up like a rickety old man, the electrical charge still tingling through him. “How did we get here?”
“Mez Beds, please,” she said.
Two beds materialized in the middle of the room, crystalline in appearance with a glow pulsing from within. Ear muffs – or some device that looked like ear muffs – were at the head of each bed. “You cannot leave this dome until you find your true connection. It will bond you, even if you can’t overcome your kismet issues with each other. It is your destiny. It is our destiny. You will right a great wrong that is facing our people.” She snapped her fingers, gesturing for them to lay on the beds.
Jaxx and Fox didn’t move and Liberty dipped her head. “It is your choice. Until then, it is by decree and a past agreement between you two that you may not leave this dome until you have understood your bond.”
She left the dome and the door shut behind her, though no lines showed where a door should have been. No frame, no door knob, nothing. It was again one big dome.
Fox stood, stretching, then cracking his knuckles. “This ought to be fun.” He rushed Jaxx, ready to kill him where he stood.
27
Somewhere in North Carolina ~ Earth
He’d been on the road for three hours. All he’d seen on the way were a few cars and mostly people walking on the side of the freeway, their thumbs out. Drew would have pulled over many times, but each time, the memory of the men who stole his car came to mind. In a time like this, he could only trust himself.
Mya hadn’t woken up yet. Perhaps the trauma had overrun her nervous system and her body was keeping her safe by conking her to sleep as long as it could before the trauma reared its ugly head the moment she woke up.
The red gas light blinked on. Near empty.
His stomach fell. Fuck, now he was feeling trauma. Not like back when the foreign military was opening fire on his location, but still…a car with no gas equaled he’d be up shit creek.
He was passing Balsam, North Carolina on Route 74. Population 49.
He pulled onto the exit. The gas station was run down and his car jostled up and down as he pulled onto the broken driveway.
Mya was still asleep.
He pulled up to one of the two pumps, a Country Mountain Store sign above the roof of the store only yards away told him exactly where he was – butt fucking nowhere. The store looked empty. Nothing in life from this point forward would be easy, not that it had ever been. But with the US economy in the toilet, people running to safety, and everyone – just like him – suspicious of everyone, life would be a shit-show of people stealing and pillaging and looking out for number one.
He opened his car door. “A mountain store?” he said quietly to himself. The smell of fresh air and pine seeped into his nostrils. The landscape was beyond gorgeous. Green, healthy trees dotted the mountains surrounding Balsam.
He took out his wallet, eyeing a credit card. He sighed. “I hope this works.” He slid it into the gas pump’s card reader. No response. The lack of digital numbers on the pump’s display should have told him exactly that – not operational.
There was a beat up truck parked on the grass by the side of the store, rust starting to make its home on its roof. He hurried over, checking left and right, hoping nobody was watching him. He opened the driver door and popped open the gas cap cover. He shut the door and walked over and unscrewed the gas cap, then took a whiff. There was still gas in there. He’d have to siphon it. He went to the store’s front door and jiggled the handle. Locked.
He glanc
ed back at his car. Mya was stretching, yawning, rubbing her eyes.
She opened the door. “Mamma? Where’s mama?”
Oh, boy. Here we go. He strode up next to her, bending down, rubbing her chest. He didn’t know if that’s what you’re supposed to do with kids, but he’d give it a go. “Mya? Your mom won’t be able to see you for a while. I’m going to be taking care of you until your dad arrives.”
Did he just say that? Taking care of her? He couldn’t even take care of his bong. And when was he going to explain that her mom would never see her again?
Kids were an anomaly to him, perhaps because he was an anomaly as a child. Growing up, he didn’t know how to talk to kids his own age and especially didn’t like playing Legos or stacking blocks with them, since other kids were so elementary. Plus, being born with photographic memory had its down sides with runny nosed, piss-ant kids who made fun of him for knowing algebra and equations better than college professors by age ten.
“Where is daddy?” Mya got out of the car, yawning. A cold breeze brushed against them and she huddled up against Drew’s leg.
Drew put his hands out and leaned back like Mya was a leach, trying to suck the blood out of his leg. A soft buzz sounded behind him and before he could look to see what it was, his mom popped up in the front seat, her hands around the wheel, staring at Drew like he had half a brain.
“Get a hold of yourself, Drew. She’s a child. Comfort her, and for God’s sakes, stop lying to her.”
Drew jumped back an inch, taking Mya with him.
Laura gave Drew an understanding nod, one that said you know what to do and that she didn’t raise an idiot, then his mom faded away.
Drew scratched the back of his head and looked down at Mya.
The breeze blew again and Mya squeezed tighter around his leg, doing her best to block herself from the mountain air.
Atlantis Quadrilogy - Box Set Page 39