The Broken and the Dead (Book 2): The Merciless and the Dead

by Jay Morris

  “Why do you think the underling didn’t try to contact the government?”

  “I don’t know señor, maybe they couldn’t find you? Maybe because they talk only to the children? Los niños?”

  The Captain seemed totally unaware of the dream-share. He asked to be taken to some of the children who spoke to aliens in their dreams.

  The Weir and The West were parked in an ‘L’ shape creating a nice ‘play area’ for the kids and the Da-Nah and to make it easier for the underling to monitor them. It was a mad house, Galveston kids had mixed in and they were all playing tag or chase or something. Sitting on a park bench (which I had no idea where it came from) was Krista and Jodi, each holding their babies and talking quietly.

  Hernando called out to his daughter, Lisa, who came jogging over, Lucy, Gina and Chase in tow. Following ten feet behind them, with two Da-Nah along for the ride, was Tucker.

  “Sweetheart, this man wants to talk to you about the dream-share with the underling.”

  She looked at the soldier then said,

  “Sure Papi, what do you want to know?”

  They talked for quite a bit and he asked things like what did they do? Was it scary? Do you feel afraid? The girls answered him as best they could, sometimes laughing at the questions, sometimes looking like they thought he was crazy. Lucy finally said,

  “Dream-share is why the underling won’t hurt anyone cause if one of them does then they all suffer. The underling don’t lie, but sometimes they don’t tell you everything, And the underling wouldn’t even let the little Da-Nah be hurt even though the big Da-Nah were sometimes mean to them.”

  Lisa added,

  “The underling are the best people we know, they don’t hold a grudge against us even though humans killed a lot of them. They understand.”

  The soldier looked at them for a moment then said “That’s just amazing.”

  Gina stepped forward and peered at Compton carefully then looked at chase and said “I don’t know Chase, maybe.”

  “Maybe what?” Compton asked.

  “Chase thinks you look like Frankie’s daddy. But not nearly big enough.”

  The soldier looked pale and he stuttered for a moment before saying

  “Frankie? Why did you say that name?”

  Lisa explained.

  “When you were here yesterday the underling sent memories out to all the underling they could and all the underling they could to see if anyone knew you, if you were a person to be trusted.”

  Lucy elaborated,

  “There is a little boy named Frankie and he thinks you might be his daddy but his daddy is like twelve feet tall.”

  Compton sat down in the dirt, like his knees gave out.

  “Where is he?” he asked.

  “The underling have him, they found him in a house surrounded by dry corn fields. They are coming here, they have about six or seven other people with him. They should be here in a day or so.” Lisa explained.

  “Oh my God” Compton said, “Was it Nebraska? Omaha?”

  “Underling don’t know Nebraska mister.” Gina said.

  He got to his knees and took out his wallet, removed a picture and showed it to the girls

  “Is this Frankie”

  “I think so” Lucy said.

  “I thinked so first.” Gina added.

  “Yep, that’s Frankie. We shared with him last night.” Lisa said.

  “Oh my God, thank you girls, thank you and thank the underling for me.” Compton was hugging everyone who would let him, even Hernando. He even tried to hug me, and while I was happy for him I still wasn’t over the way they killed Ethan and Mary.

  “You are silly.” Gina laughed.

  “Yep, you are silly Mister. You can tell them yourself, underling understand.”

  The girls scampered away with Gina calling out for the Da-Nah who had climbed off of Tucker,

  “*buzz*whirr*click* and they chased after the humans.

  “What? How?” he stammered.

  “Don’t ask.” I said, speaking for the first time.

  “They don’t know they are doing it.”

  Day 59, Continued, Fort Bragg

  Commandant of the Marine Corps, Sargent Major Crook and Army Chief of Staff, General Avett sat across from each other in Avett’s private chambers, they had just received the report from Captain Compton and each had a glass of bourbon in hand.

  “Well General, seems we are in a fine mess.” Crook said lifting his glass in salute.

  “Yes, Sargent Major, indeed we are.” He answered.

  They lifted their glasses and toasted one another before downing their drinks.

  “So, what are we going to do about it?”

  “No clue Sargent Major”

  There was a knock on the door and Avett told them to enter. A young Marine, all of twenty years old came in, shut the door quietly and saluted. Once returned the Sargent Major spoke,

  “What can we do for you Lance Corporal?”

  He hesitated,

  “Sargent Major, General Sir…“ then he hesitated.

  “Come on marine speak up” Crook urged.

  “Yes Sir, Well Sir, “again he hesitated, but when the General raised his brows as if to say ‘get on with it boy’ he continued,

  “Request permission to speak off the record Sir.”

  The two older men looked at each other, Avett shrugged, Crook answered.

  “Permission granted son, whats up?”

  “Sir, well Sir, I have a friend, a close friend Sir, and she is in a position to be privy to certain things.”

  This got their attention and Crook interrupted

  “And who is this friend?” The boy looked frightened so Crook reassured him

  “It’s all right son, you won’t get in trouble, what’s got your panties in a twist?”

  The young marine suddenly looked determined to get this out, no matter what.

  “Sir, Lt. Cartwright and I have a close personal relationship.”

  The General smirked and said

  “Is this the Air Force officer with, um, the big, well never mind, what about her? You didn’t come here to confess to fraternization.”

  “No sir, it’s just that she was in the Comm-shack when the President came in, he had everyone leave but apparently he didn’t know that there is a record of all comms.”

  “Careful now son, you sure you want to go on?” Avett cautioned.

  “Sir, yes Sir, I am, she found out that the President is attempting to get Captain Weaver of the U.S.S. Alaska to accept his launch code authorizations.”

  Avett and Crook were both very interested at this point.

  “And just where is the President targeting the boomer?”

  “Sir, President Burwell is asking for a nuclear strike against Galveston, Texas Sir. Against what he says are rebel humans Sir, Traitors. Sir, that isn’t true Sir”

  “And just how do you know that isn’t true?” the General demanded, his fatherly demeanor gone.

  “Sir, the Comm-Shack…”

  “Right, right, now listen here, you are treading on thin ice, I am ordering you to confine yourself to quarters until I tell you otherwise. Got that?”

  Avett had slowly rose to his feet as the sentence was spoken. Crook stood as well.”

  “Sir, yes, Sir”

  There was a moment of silence the Crook said,

  “Do as the General orders son, I will debrief you later.”

  “Sir, aye, aye, Sir.”

  The marine saluted, took a step backwards, did an about face and got the Hell out of there.

  “He probably thinks he is going to be shot.” Crook said.

  “If this was any other time he and his girlfriend probably would be.”

  “But it isn’t any other time, is it General?”

  “No, Sargent Major Crook, it most definitely isn’t, I wish it was, but it isn’t.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?”

  There was a long moment of
silence, then Avett said,

  “Nothing, Sargent Major, we are doing nothing.”

  Avett took out his M-9 and checked the chamber, then worked the slide to load a round. He picked up a pen and jotted something on a piece of paper.

  “What is that General?” Crook asked.

  “My resignation Crook, I want you to wait here for five minutes then get a security detail and bring them to the President’s office.”

  Crook stared at him then said’

  “General, with all due respect, blow it out your ass. Sir.”

  Crook took his personal weapon out, a colt model 1911 in .45 ACP, and chambered a round in it as well.

  The General looked at the old Marine and smiled,

  “Well, let’s go talk to the President.”

  The walk was short, up one flight of stairs and down one long hallway. They talked about a bar outside Subic Bay in Olongapo, called The Tahiti Bar . They laughed at the memory of so many young Americans going there and leaving with a lot less money and a case of the clap as a parting gift. The guard outside the door saluted and opened the door for them, stepped to one side for them and shut the door

  “Mr. President, a word please?”

  “Yes, of course gentlemen I was about to call for you. I assume you have read that traitor Compton’s report? They must be using some kind of mind control, he was a good man.”

  “About that Sir…” Avett began.

  “Don’t worry gentlemen, I have this in control, I have just got the last bit of info I needed to take control of our last SSBN, number 732, the Alaska. She’s running with a skeleton crew off of Cuba. I intend to erase that den of vipers from the face of the Earth once and for all.”

  The Marine guard rushed into the office when he heard the report of two weapons firing, one 9mm, one .45. The last President of the United States was unable to give the order to destroy Galveston.

  In the months that followed Commandant Crook, General Avett, and Captain Weaver were able to form a Joint Chiefs Committee, one of them (on a rotating basis) served as a military adviser to a research scientist from the National Laboratory system, a doctor, a teacher, an engineer and an underling. The basis team for the new North American Union.

  Day 60, Galveston, East Beach

  The underling were amazing, they began to show us much of the technology that the Da-Nah were going to use to mold our world into one of their own as well as the now open communication screens. The Da-nah had the ability to process toxic waste into their elemental components at an astounding rate. They could use those elements and the vast amount of powdered residue that covered much of what used to be our cities into new building materials. In fact the rate at which the material could be produced far exceeded our needs.

  The Galveston group met and were coming up with a new design for their community, one with safety and efficiency being the driving metric, but elegance and beauty being a welcome side effect. The underling seemed to silently integrate themselves into families or groups of them, in a short while even the most hardened xenophobe felt the trust and affection of the little gray guys. From the comm-screens we learned that there were groups of humans and underling working together around the world; England, Norway, southern France and Italy, Belgium, Columbia, Australia, Peru among others.

  Our group had a separate meeting, we decided that we wanted to go to the north east with our underling. Look for other human survivors and underling alike. We knew there was at least three vehicles heading that way from central Canada, so it should be real interesting. Amy had given up her campaign against me and Karen and even reached a state of mutual non-recognition with Jodi. I found myself getting a little jealous of Compton’s driver who kept coming around to talk to Karen but she said she could handle it.

  Just as promised, the following evening Frankie Compton arrived along with several other humans and sixteen Da-Nah infants. The day after that, Compton’s entire surviving unit, 24 strong came into camp with us. Compton joined Barnes and Velaquez as co-leaders of Galveston.

  Jodi continued to improve, her sense of reality getting better each day, except for her continued insistence that the Da-Nah infant was her son Jim Junior and that she was married to Tucker. Tucker still did not speak or show emotion of any sort. I think I kind of liked him better in some ways, he wasn’t always hurting, neither physically or emotionally. Still, he had been important to us and like it or not he had impacted us a lot so far. Eventually the underling said that they did not know if he would ever be completely ‘repaired’ or as he once was. They theorized he was stuck in “Protect mode” that his own psyche had interacted with their biological programming in some way they did not understand.

  The day we were to leave for Oregon/Washington someone put a “world’s best grandpa” sweater on him. I don’t know if it was a joke or not but Lucy and Gina and even Chase loved it. Chase had begun to spend more time with Tucker and playing with the Da-Nah babies, Chase and Tucker, the silent ones.

  There was one, last, painful, agonizing moment yet to occur that morning. Just as we were about to close up the West and the Weir, Compton’s driver, Dustin, had showed up, he wanted Karen to stay with him in Galveston, she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. The way they were touching made me realize they were closer than I had realized. That I had been a stupid kid after all. She wouldn’t agree to it but she surprised everyone by turning to us asking if he could come with her. Like she found a puppy could she keep it? I literally saw red.

  Nobody said anything, they all looked at me. I considered my options, I could kill him, I could accept it, or I could walk away. If I killed him, I would lose Karen, if I walked away I would lose her. If I accepted it, then I had already lost her. I was screwed. I couldn’t believe it was happening.

  I set my rifle down, I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings. I walked down the ramp, the beautiful girl I loved so much was there staring at me with eyes that just couldn’t be that lovely. I held out my hands and she took mine, she smiled. I said,

  “I told you that I would love you forever. And I will, no matter what.”

  She smiled and began,

  “Oh, Johnny thank…”

  But before she could finish her sentence, I slipped Gina’s ring from her hand, turned and started to walk back up the ramp.

  “Wha..Wait! No!” she yelled as I slapped the access control panel and the ramp began to close behind me. That was awful, it was the worst thing since Billy, Elaine, and Mom. It got worse.

  Karen was trying to climb in after me and Dustin ran forward and grabbed her around the waist, I don’t think he was trying to hurt her but she was screaming to be let go. He was trying to keep her and well, her grip came loose and he accidentally ended up throwing her to the ground. I can see it in slow motion, Tucker taking two long strides, leaping over the rapidly ascending ramp like he was diving into a swimming pool. Dustin was reaching for Karen, probably to help her up, but Tucker didn’t see that. He saw an attack, he saw one of us in trouble. Tucker grabbed Dustin by the throat and lifted him from the ground with his left hand. His right palm caved in Dustin’s face. He was dead before he hit the ground, pieces of his skull had exploded into his brain.

  I had started to lower the ramp almost immediately when Karen and grabbed the lip of the ramp but Amy was there before I could even get out the door. She was holding Karen who was crying hysterically. I had to grab my rifle as a half dozen armed people ran towards Tucker who was standing there in his “Best Grandpa” sweater, as if nothing had happened.

  I held up one hand and yelled for them to stop, if one of them fired a weapon at us, Tucker might wipe out the entire camp. It took Amy, Hernando and Compton to calm everyone down. Eventually, it was decided that we should go, there was very little they could have done except perhaps try to shoot Tucker in the head and given his alloy steel reinforced skull I wasn’t sure even that would work. To my surprise Karen let Amy lead her up the ramp and a few moments later our ‘V’s were heading
west.

  Day 60, Continued, Congo, the Rain Forest

  The Da-Nah were frightened, singly or in small groups they hid from this new horror. Several Da-Nah had taken their own lives rather than face it. Ga-at-Ta-E was only a technician, one who specialized in the super-conductive nano-wave emitters that fed the Klystrons of the Da-Nah central power cores. But now he was the only adult in a mismatched assortment of siblings, and therefore he was accountable for their lives. To be honest if it hadn’t been for the young female sibling designation So-Na, he and the siblings would have died in the valley below with so many of their fellow Da-Nah.

  They had been walking for hours and had stopped near a small water source to rest and take nourishment. He was assisting a general device technician in setting up water purification devices when they heard the first screams of agony and then found the air fouled by the scent of abject terror. From far up the trail he could see the occasional flash of a laser cutter or the thump of a bolt gun but there was no stopping what was heading their way.

  So-Na grabbed his hand in both of hers and spoke to him in so earnest a manner, he could not refuse her.

  “Statement-Factual Protocol-Urgent Conjunctive (Conceal, Locative-Modification).”

  She pulled on his hand, urging him to go with her into the jungle. He was frightened but he could not abandom a Da-Nah sibling regardless of her breeding group.

  “Protocol Initiate.” He said and flashed concern and reassurance to her.

  He began to gather anyone who would listen, as it turned out it was only the younger Da-Nah who were willing. Instead of running down the trail where the Da-Nah were waiting, So-Na led them up a steep incline until they were at least 50 yards above the carnage. The small group hid under a rock ledge and watched as their people were slaughtered by monsters they could scarcely conceive.

  The creatures were about the same size as the other Indigenous-Life-Aggressives but these were far more terrifying. Their bodies were shiny and black, as hard as armor-coated platicast with vicious blades that appeared from their wrists with an awful *snikt* sound. Those awful blades were serrated and razor sharp, they cut through Da-Nah flesh as easily as a laser. The creatures had hugely oversized jaws lined with row upon row of needle sharp teeth. Caustic, bacteria laden venom dripped from them.