by Jesse Wilson
“What’s your name, lady in black?” the guard asked her and she stopped, turning her head to glance at him.
“Smith,” she replied and disappeared around a corner.
The guard didn’t believe her for a second. His attention was soon grabbed by a gust of wind that carried the faint smell of burned flesh. He had to force himself to not throw up.
The people she saw were all injured. Laying on gurneys, moaning in pain, and everyone was burned to some degree. The burned ones were clean. The infection healed people, so she was looking for people who were up and walking around. People who were fine in an impossible situation, and right now, there was no one like that around.
“General, we have a problem. I can’t find the target in this crowd. She’s hiding,” she said into her radio.
“Damn it, okay, listen. I have a helicopter available, and I am going to sweep over the camp with the UV. You be ready to act as soon as we find it,” General Benton replied to her, and she looked around again.
“I’m in Section Three right now. Keep me posted. I’ll keep looking from here,” she said quietly.
Lars rolled his eyes and felt the headache coming on again.
“Get the bird in the air, and scan the camp with the light,” the general ordered, and a messenger started to run from the tent.
“Hold up. Don’t tell the pilot we have a breach. Just tell the team to scan everything; it’s a routine mission. There is no need for more panic than we already have,” he said to the man.
“Yes, sir, I understand,” the messenger said and he left the tent, leaving the general alone.
“God, if you’re listening I’d appreciate a little help right now, anything would do. I’m trying to help people, but I feel as if they are all going to be taken by this thing from space. Maybe this is what we deserve. Until there is no reason to fight, I will keep fighting. God, if you’re paying attention at all, pick a side and stick with it until the end,” the general prayed as he heard the helicopter take off. He could only hope that the thing upstairs listened and was still on their side.
Logan and James followed Nurse Baldwin to another tent, but it wasn’t empty. Three bandaged people were laying on gurneys were there with IV tubes running into their arms.
“You two should be safe here,” she said to them. Neither of them believed her.
“I am sure we will be, but for how long?” James wondered out loud.
“As long as needed. I am sure they have everything under control by now and the threat is over,” she replied, looking around at the injured. She knew this was a terrible place to treat burns of any kind but tried to keep her mind off of it.
“The threat is my girlfriend, and that person out there is going to freeze and shatter her into a million pieces like she did to that other guy. I am not okay with this,” Logan said, barely containing his emotions.
“Hey man, calm down, you’re not helping anyone. I know this sucks, but all we can do right now is not freak out. Maybe she’ll get away; maybe she’ll just be frozen and not shattered. Think positive,” James said, but didn’t believe a word of what he was saying.
“Oh, just, you know, the power of positive thinking is going to make all my problems go away. Brilliant, Dodd, just goddamned brilliant,” he replied and sat down in a chair that was too close to a burned body for comfort, so he slid it away from the makeshift bed.
“It’s better than dwelling in despair, don’t you think? Plus, we can think of what we are going to do after this is all over,” James replied to him.
“Over? There is no over. This thing, whatever it is, is going to win. I can feel it. All we can do now is run until there is nowhere left to go, hide, and wait to be eaten,” Logan replied and put his face into his hands, finally giving into what he was sure was the reality of his situation.
Baldwin looked between the two and couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You two idiots are complaining when you could be there, burned beyond recognition, dying,” she said to them as she got angry with their whining. Phoenix looked at her and sighed.
“You’re right. The world is coming to a slow and slimy end. No reason to lose my cool now. Better wait until we’re for sure out of time,” he replied to her sarcastically.
“Damn right. Now, you two be on your guard. If you’re moping around in here, the monster will sneak up on you. It’d be a shame if you got infected after living through all of this,” she said and glared at them. The nurse had a point and the two of them started to compose themselves after that.
“There. If I come back here and you’re a crying heap on the floor, I am shooting you both,” she said and almost smiled while patting the gun on her side before turning to walk out.
Just after she did, the sound of a helicopter was heard moving overhead. “Nothing like a death threat to improve one’s mood, eh,” Phoenix said but still couldn’t bring himself to feel better.
“Nope, that’ll do it,” James replied to him as he sat down on a chair that didn’t look nearly strong enough to hold his, or anyone’s weight. To his surprise, it didn’t break.
***
“Scorpion to September, please come in, over,” the pilot said into the radio. “What do you see?” she replied.
“We got slime in Section Five. It’s heading towards the center of the camp but hasn’t infected anyone else as far as we can tell,” the pilot replied to her and continued. “We’ll keep looking, but you need to cut that thing off; it’s a miracle no one else has been infected yet,” the pilot finished.
“Yeah, keep looking, September out,” she said. She put her helmet back on and took off in a dead run towards the center of the camp. She didn’t care what this thing’s intentions were all; she knew was that a monster was running around in this excuse for a medical camp, and she had to stop it.
It only took her six minutes from where she was to get to the center of the camp, but once she got there, all she found was human wreckage laying on gurneys, waiting to be sent to different sections. Nurses, soldiers, and overwhelming chaos were layered with ambient screams from different directions.
Maybe she beat it here. That was always a possibility, she supposed, but the truth was that luck wasn’t on her side. With a quick glance around, she noticed a woman walking on the other side of the perimeter. Tina didn’t seem to notice the black suit of armor, but neither did anyone else. The misery was so great that if anyone did, they might have just thought it was some kind of containment suit and nothing more.
September rested her hand against her weapon and considered her options carefully. A fight here would go very badly. On the other hand, what choice did she really have in the matter? She started to walk forward in Tina’s direction and held her breath in the process.
September tracked her prey for only a few seconds and stopped when Tina began to speak.
“Listen, all of you broken people laying here. I can fix you. Your great city was sacrificed for no reason. I offer immortality, and your leaders and race would rather accept free will and death over it. What has your free will given you so far?” Tina asked very loudly as she stepped forward, taking off all the bandages to reveal herself as healed.
“We’ll never be slaves. Monster, you can go straight to Hell,” a voice cried out, racked with obvious pain. September watched all of this unfold; this was not matching up to the information she had received.
“Slaves? No, you’re wrong. You are slaves now, to weakness and death. I can free you all and heal every single one of you. Look at yourselves. Most of you in this camp are just going to die slow and painful deaths. Let me show you what you’re actually missing,” she said and walked to a badly burned woman laying on a gurney in front of her.
“Watch,” Tina said with a smile, extending her left arm over the body. Black slime slithered out of her skin and fell on the particularly wicked, badly wrapped burn that was partly exposed. The alien ooze immediately sunk into the burned flesh, and everyone watched as the burned skin regenerated. Wi
thin just a few seconds, the once burned body convulsed only once, then sat up. She tore the bandages off to reveal burned clothes, but the body had no signs of damage on it at all.
“Behold the perfect future,” Tina said to all of them and smiled, but kept her razor black fangs retracted as she did so.
“You don’t have a future,” September said. She pulled out her cryo cannon and took aim as she pulled the trigger. The newly healed woman was struck by the bright blue ray and frozen instantly in place.
“You again, always ruining all the fun minutes of our life. I am so disappointed in you,” Tina said, revealing her mouth full of black fangs and deep yellow eyes.
“The human race won’t submit to anything like you; we’d die first. It was a mistake to allow the demonstration to go forward. It won’t happen again,” September said, and despite all the people around that could have been used as a shield, she opened fire again. Tina snarled, saw it coming, and jumped out of the way. Once she landed, she immediately turned and lunged at September. In what only seemed like a second, she cleared the distance between them.
Tina grabbed September by the throat, and with frightening ease, lifted her up only to slam her back into the ground with one arm.
“How’s that human spirit working out for you now? Oh, what’s that? Having trouble talking when you can’t breathe? Typical human,” Tina said as she squeezed the neck armor, making it collapse with her immense strength. She lifted her up and slammed September back into the ground with one arm again by the neck. The impact caused her helmet to fly off and blood to spurt out of her mouth. She gritted her teeth in pain but refused to cry out. She was trained better than that.
September desperately punched the alien-infected woman in the face with her left fist, sending the black slime-formed fangs flying out of her mouth. Tina laughed as she stumbled back from the enhanced strength of her enemy, releasing her grip.
“Every time you hit me, my—” September wasted no time and fired her cryo cannon at the infected one, freezing her solid. Standing up, in one arcing motion, she immediately froze all the slime on the ground as well.
“You talk too much,” she said as she wiped her own blood from her mouth.
“Cleanup, center of camp, the threat is contained,” she said into her radio, still out of breath. The crowd around her, those strong enough to know what was going on, started to clap, applauding her victory. She wasn’t used to this much attention. She waited until the cleanup unit arrived to make sure no one touched any pieces of the frozen thing.
***
“General Lars Benton, come in, over,” a strange voice came in over his radio. “Who in the hell is on this frequency?” the general asked in annoyance. He didn’t need any more problems to deal with today.
“This is Commander Spiri from Fort Poseidon; you’re in direct violation of the Orders of the President of the United States and charged with high treason. You and all of the infected in your camp will be cleansed,” she said to him and the general’s eyes went wide.
“No, you can’t. We have total containment; there is no threat here!” he screamed into the radio, but the other line went dead. He rushed out of his tent and looked up. In the clear blue sky, in the far distance, he could see a tiny black dot. He knew what it was. “What kind of maniac would call Fort Poseidon?” he asked himself. “God have mercy on our souls,” he said quietly.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Bruce and Xule were riding in the helicopter, and they were passing over the blockade. Bruce looked down from the chopper. He could see the wreckage down there and people who looked like ants from here.
“They aren’t people anymore,” Xule said to him and sighed.
“Xeloid DNA detected; no true humans are down there,” Sippy said, repeating what he said in order to reaffirm his suspicions.
“I know that, but that means that this thing is closer to Xy and we can’t have that. Hey, can this thing fly any faster? We are right on their trail, but at this rate, we are going to lose,” Bruce said impatiently to Phil.
“Going as fast as this thing can go. It’s just a news chopper, not exactly meant for speed. We’ll get to where we are going in less than ten minutes as long as the directions are good,” Phil replied, annoyed because the directions he got were straight into the middle of nowhere.
“How do you plan to stop the monster this time?” Xule asked him.
“Same way we did it in Vegas. Ice beams and some luck. The core of the thing is locked up; if we can get the mind locked away this time, the threat should be about over. A few cleanup operations should take care of the rest,” Bruce replied and crossed his arms. Xule shook his head.
“I’m glad you think it’ll be that easy. On Yola, Narbosaurus could infect any living thing. Most of the planet was a part of it. Birds, animals, sometimes even plants. Everything was covered with a thick slime. The only thing it couldn’t seem to infect were the Yu forests,” Xule said and continued. “We landed hunting parties there to be as safe as we could. By now, I would estimate the number of infected creatures on this planet is too great to beat. I hate to say this, but I think you are, as you earthlings would say it, screwed,” Xule said and Bruce glared at him.
“I’m sure you hated being the messenger of bad news, but don’t worry. I have a plan, I think,” Bruce said, but deep down, he didn’t have a plan; he didn’t even know what to do next.
“I can’t wait to hear what it is,” Xule said, shaking off that chill that was determined to crawl up his spine. Phil underestimated his time of arrival.
“Oh my God,” he cried out as Bruce looked out the side window. Below them, a battle was being waged. The base’s energy shield was lighting up as infected people were bashing their fists against it. The woman in green standing on top of the stolen truck was watching it.
“No wonder they didn’t call for help. Energy shields block out just about everything,” Bruce said as the three of them watched.
“So, how do we plan to get inside?” Xule asked him. “I mean. we could try the front door,” he finished and tapped his blaster at his side.
“Yeah, no. Fly us to that cement building a mile to the west,” Bruce said and pointed toward a small speck in the distance.
“On it,” Phil replied and turned the chopper in that direction.
“Secret passages. I like the style your species has after all,” Xule said and smiled. “Yeah, we like to try and plan for everything. Most bases have secrets like this. Normally, the energy field just makes the base invisible, so people just drive right on by. In an emergency, it’s a full on force field, but the power it takes to do this is, well, impressive,” Bruce said as they flew towards the small shack.
The chopper landed minutes later, and the engines began to wind down. Xule opened the door and stepped out first.
“Looks clear out here, so let’s make this fast alright,” he said as Bruce stepped out.
“Pilot, you’re coming with us. It’s not safe out here,” Bruce said to Phil. He finished the procedures to shut the machine off then he got out and joined them. Bruce walked the short distance to the shack. The others followed him there.
“Is this the place or did you just lose your mind?” Xule asked him, confused as to why they were here.
There was an old panel beside the heavy entrance that looked to be sealed with cement door. The outside casing looked as if it was rusty and ancient. Bruce took hold of the lid and slid it straight up. Inside was a brightly lit keypad. Bruce proceeded to punch in a code; he didn’t care if they saw what it was or not.
“I know what I am doing,” Bruce said as he finished the code. Phil looked to his left and wondered what a can opener was doing on the ground, as if someone had thrown it away. He took his attention off of the random object quickly.
The cement door slid open to reveal an elevator. Bruce stepped inside and the other two followed him in. There was only one glowing white button on a panel. The three of them stood there for a minute.
> “Damn it, do I need to do everything?” Bruce sighed and reached forward, pushing the button.
“Yep, you do,” Xule replied as the doors closed and the elevator began to descend.
“How long is this ride?” Phil asked out loud under his breath.
“About five minutes; it only has one stop,” Bruce replied to him. There wasn’t even any music to make the ride less awkward.
About three minutes into their trip, a troubling thought crossed Xule’s mind. “Narbosaurus copied your DNA, right?” Xule asked him.
“Yeah, it was a graze, but I lived to tell about it,” Bruce replied to him.
“So, it knows what you know,” Xule said and pulled his blaster from his side.
“Son of a bitch,” Bruce said and slammed his fist against the wall, not believing how stupid he’d been.
“No way to stop this ride, I suppose,” Phil said, and took a deep breath.
The elevator doors opened. Terra was standing right in front of them.
“Well, hey boys, welcome to the party down here,” she said with a wide smile filled with black, razor-sharp fangs. Xule pointed his weapon at her as she was talking. She raised her hands and took a step back.
“You could shoot me, sure, but remember, I am the last conscious element, and I can only transfer myself once. Kill me, and all of those drones out there will go feral. I am trying to preserve the cities, structures, and what not. Unless I lose my patience with you and, well, we saw what happens then. So, your choice, Nuridian; burn me or hear me out,” she said to him, the smile never leaving her face.
In all honesty, Xule didn’t know if this was true or not. For all he knew, this thing was lying, but for now, he had no choice but to believe it.
“Slime girl here is right. If we burn this host, everything will get a lot worse,” Xule said in frustration.
“Fine, what did you want to say?” Bruce demanded and stepped out of the elevator with the others following him. Xule looked over and saw other people who clearly didn’t belong.