by Kozinn, Nat
“…it wasn’t authorized I swear it wasn’t authorized!” Larry yells from the speaker. “General Reeves. He ordered it and got the pilot to go radio silent. Gavin, Ben, Linda, if you’re hearing this. Clear the area. If you’re receiving this message please answer. We’re going to stay off the band for ten seconds.” The radio goes quiet.
“Can you transmit back?” I demand.
Nita nods yes and flips a few switches and dials. She waves her hand to a microphone coming from the console. I bend over to speak; this is probably when the poison gas sprays in my face.
“Larry, I can hear you. Please advise. What is the plane that’s coming in?” I say and flip off the transmitter.
“Gavin, Jesus Christ you’ve got to get out of there. That plane’s bringing a bomb, a big one. Reeves is out of control, he wants to take both of you out at once, uh over,’ he says into the radio.
“Ask him what the payload is,” Nita says.
“Larry, what’s on that thing? Is it a nuke? Over,” I flip the radio on and off to talk.
“Uhhh…” then I hear some whispering that I can’t pick up even with my focused hearing. “Good news I guess. It’s not a nuke, it’s a GBU 43. Bad news. They tell me that’s not really better for you. You’ve got less than a minute. Over.”
“The GBU 43 has the blast yield of 11 tons of TNT, which is greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, without the nuclear fallout. The blast radius will be approximately a mile,’ Nita says.
“That’s going to kill a lot of people,” I say.
“Losses that General Reeves finds acceptable apparently,” Nita says.
“Well I don’t,” I say and we all charge up out of the hole in the ground.
If I can intercept the bomb in the air, it will detonate above ground which will limit the damage. Everybody’s windows are going to blow out and some shoddy construction will collapse, but we’re talking dozens of deaths versus thousands. I can hear the plane getting closer. It’s a no-brainer.
There’s a hill nearby. I’m going to use it to reach the bomb at the highest point I can manage.
“Gavin, what are you doing? That bomb will vaporize you. There is no way to regenerate from that,” Nita says.
“I have a better chance than those human beings in the blast radius. I suggest you get back down in the bunker. It should provide enough cover, even with the hole,” I instruct her.
I turn to run towards the hill, but when I tell my knees to bend, the muscles don’t listen, because they’ve disappeared from my nervous system. Something cut them off. I fall towards the earth like a felled tree. I slow down time as I go down and crane my neck around enough to catch a glimpse of coarse black hair and leathery skin, The Beast. He just chopped through both of my legs with his Maceo Steel knife.
He’s underestimated me though, instead of falling to the ground, I extend my hands, palms out and land, my gorilla like long arms keeping the stumps of my legs off the pavement. I’ll have to decide whether to regrow the legs, or try to reattach them later. I need to stop The Beast now.
I dive at him, pushing off with my left arm and swiping at him with my right. But despite all the time in the world to plan, react, and act, The Beast still avoids my swipe and counters with a swipe of his own, severing my left arm just above the wrist. I land on my right hand and struggle to maintain balance for a second, before another swipe from The Beast removes my last remaining appendage.
“You’re going be okay Savior. You’ve done your part. It’s time for me to earn my redemption,” The Beast says and charges off towards the nearby cliffs.
26
My Chosen Sons, I have given you an arc to survive the flood my vessel Cabot created. It is called brotherhood. Together, you will be able to find your way out of the darkness. Together you will survive these challenging times.
Chosen Sons: 55
Thomas Calhoun smiles a wide toothy grin as he charges away from his new prophet. God has given him a chance to atone, a chance to prove his devotion through sacrifice.
All the trials all the tribulations the Lord put Thomas through; all of them were to test him, to see if he could be redeemed, if he could stay true even after so many sins. God taught hard lesson after hard lesson and now, when Thomas proves that he has changed, he will earn eternal salvation. His hands will be cleaned of his parents’ blood, of his Chosen brothers’ blood, all the blood.
Thomas can hear the plane. It is closing in fast. He tracks it flying in from the east; he’s going to have to move quickly to cut it off.
He reaches the hill and climbs, moving up the stone faced cliff like a mountain goat, deftly bouncing from crag to crag, his heart buoyed by his love for the Lord. He makes it to the top of the hill and waits.
The plane soon passes overhead. As it moves away he hears a far off whistle. It’s a horn, trumpeting Thomas’s welcome to Heaven.
He keeps his eyes pressed to the sky until he finally picks up the small black dot growing bigger by the second.
“Lord, give me strength!” he asks.
Then he bends his knees coiling his massive muscles that have wrought so much death. He releases the tension leaping as high as his legs can push him. He soars 150 feet up into the air, his highest jump ever.
He puts his Maceo Steel knife hand out, a gift from one of his brothers. He will thank Maceo Olrich in the afterlife.
He watches the tip of his knife head towards the massive bomb. The knife cuts through the metal casing, there’s a flash.
Thomas smiles wide as the flames engulf him, he is...
27
How do we move forward? How do we heal? How to we fix the fractures in our society? I’ll tell you step one: accepting that this strike did not cause the breaks, it exposed cracks that were already there. We are never going to heal as a nation if we pretend that before the strike the relationship between Differents and the rest of society was all hunky dory. Did we forget the riots and protests over consumption by Differents every time there’s a food shortage? Did we forget the constant protests by those who blame Differents for stealing their jobs? Did we forget the anger and outrage that surrounds the GIS and Section 26? Humans and Differents were never together so let us not pretend we used to join hands and sing Kumbaya before the strike. Our bridge does not need repairs; it needs to be built in the first place.
“Moving Forward Together,” by Forest Brown, think.Net News LA (printed in the Los Angeles Times)
“All right genius, explain to me what the hell this was all about? Why did you do this? Why did you surrender the Manna Fields? What was the point?” I ask Nita.
We’ve only got another minute until we make it to Maria. Larry said the bomber was a rogue agent, and the fact that it was the only one bomb supports that claim, but I’m still feeling a little distrust for the feds. I’m sure they will come take Nita away from L.A.P.D custody, but at least there will be an arrest report and a whole lot of witnesses if they just make her disappear.
“I told you Gavin, the point was to free our people,” Nita says.
“Free our people? There’s over two thousand Differents waiting to get out of military custody that might find such a claim amusing,” I tell her.
“They will be freed, as was agreed upon. America is too reliant on the fruits of their labors. People will be so relieved for the return of their needed services there will not be any calls for justice. Although it was not my primary purpose, I do believe this incident helped highlight the issues with our nation’s overreliance on Different labor. Human based industry and technological innovation has all but dried up. I am hopeful that this will serve as a wakeup call to the country.”
“I don’t understand. What was your primary purpose? How did this free anyone?” I say and wave my arms.
Maria is waiting for us as we approach. She’s got a dozen officers with her, a few of whom have cuts and scrapes. The shockwave from the bomb hurt, but if it wasn’t for The Beast, they would have been incinerated instead of battere
d.
“You Gavin. You were my primary purpose. You are how our people will be free,” Nita says then walks over towards Maria, her tiny arms extended for the handcuffs.
“How am I supposed to free our people? I don’t understand,” I ask her.
“Let me show you,” she says and points to her head. I think she’s telling me to connect telepathically.
I do just that, stretching out my thoughts until they bump up against hers, but they do more than just touch. I feel them wrap together, merging.
There’s a hill out in the middle of a desert. A tiny wave of ants moves in and flattens the top of the hill, leveling the mountain to a plain in the blink of an eye. The ants swarm, piling on top of each other, forming a tower. The picture moves closer and the ants grow larger. It becomes clear that they aren’t ants but men, men who all look an awful lot like Gavin Stillman. There are thousands of him. They are all hard at work, using their incredible speed and strength to assemble a massive skyscraper. It only takes a few seconds to build the structure, and only a minute for a dozen similar buildings to join the first. Soon there is an entire city, all built by an endless horde of Gavin Stillmans. The image disappears in a flash.
“What just happened to me?” I ask
“That was the Merge. I am sorry if the exchange was a little on sided, I can be overbearing,” Nita says.
“What were you showing me?”
“You should take a tissue sample from a Walter and then imagine the possibilities. Is there any task that could not be accomplished with an army of Gavins?” Nita says then turns her back, ending our conversation.
“What is she talking about?” Maria asks.
“The future, I think,” I answer.
END
Love my story? Hate it? Share your opinion and help support me at the same time. Write me a review on Amazon. Your feedback will help prove to the world that someone read this novel and maybe other people should too. Thank you!
Want more of me? Visit my website at natkozinn.com or email me at [email protected]