by Jesse Wilson
The black flesh dropped her inside a strange-looking chamber filled with lights and wires that seemed to have no purpose.
“Machine, it’s me, Heather. I called you apparently. I brought you here, but you don’t need to burn the planet. You can go back into space. Your mission is complete!” she yelled into nothing.
“Protocol Eltrix commencing,” a mechanical voice echoed in response, and immediately, wires fired from the walls and ripped into her skin from all directions. Heather tried to tear them out, but there were thousands of wires for every one she managed to pull out.
The mechanical assault continued, and Heather tried to pull herself free, only to see that the metal opening inside had closed up. The wires had shredded her clothes to pieces and suspended her in the air. Her blood flowed onto the metal floor, and she went as limp as she could.
The pain was intense and all she could do was grit her teeth, and think. It turned out, humans and aliens were the same; they all could tell a lie, and the pain gave way to anger.
Narbosaurus stood motionless. It lowered its arms and did nothing, watching it carefully, prepared for anything at this point. The massive machine jerked to life and fell to the ground. Narbosaurus was startled at this and took a step back. The machine screamed in pain in a very human voice as its armors began to quickly change colors before reverting to a gray tone.
Something no one expected to happen, began to happen. Garmonbozia began to shrink in size. Narbosaurus, sensing the threat was over, followed in kind and shrank back down to its Terra form. It floated over to the rapidly shrinking machine. By the time Terra got there, all she found was a footprint. And at human size, in the footprint the size of a small crater, was Heather.
She was curled up and looked exactly as she did when he put her in the machine, clothes and all. She was curled up and shaking, shivering as if trapped in some frozen wasteland, unaware of anything. Terra bent down and put her hand on Heather’s arm but when she did, the skin wasn’t skin at all: it was metal.
In that second, she realized what must have happened.
“Oh you poor thing, you’re a mess,” Terra said to her and shook her head. Heather opened her eyes, and they were glowing with a blue light.
“Mess? You don’t know the meaning of the word,” Heather growled in a grinding, metal voice.
With her left arm, she backhanded Terra in the chin so hard she went flying fifty feet away with almost no effort. Heather stood up and looked at her hands.
“Interesting,” she said through the shivering, and with a sinister smile, she walked towards the one responsible for her condition. Terra stood up and snarled. Her mouth showed those black fangs, and her eyes turned deep yellow.
“Okay, hybrid. If you want to fight some more, I’m up for that.” Narbosaurus had enough of this, and if Heather was just getting used to this new body, she should be easy enough to beat.
Heather and Terra marched towards one another, Heather’s eyes literally burning with blue fire and hate, Terra’s with deep yellow. Bruce and the others were running as fast as they could and managed to get there just before they started fighting.
“Wait! Stop fighting, please; we don’t have time for this,” Bruce screamed and the two of them actually stopped.
“Nuclear weapons are incoming, remember? We need to get out of here now,” he said to them, and Heather looked at Xule and glared.
“You,” she said and pointed at him. “Be with you in a second, slime bucket. I have a pair of boots to make,” she said, and in a second was standing face to face with him.
“You lied to me. I’m going to kill you for tricking me into being this thing. My life is over,” she said to him in a metallic, angry voice.
“Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t do it if I told you what was going to happen. We saved your world from being turned into a lifeless, burned-up hunk of charcoal. I suppose that warrants a death sentence,” Xule replied to her and didn’t flinch at all.
Heather thought about tearing his head off, but decided not to do it, for now anyway.
“What are we going to do about the nuclear weapons that are coming? Do you have a plan for that?” Terra asked Bruce and he shook his head.
“No, I couldn’t convince them to change their plans,” Bruce replied to her. The rest of them didn’t feel so great about any of that.
“Wait. We have two super-powered beings here. Either one of them could stop the planes,” Randall said, and everyone looked at the two of them.
“I’m not sure, but I can sense two planes about three miles out. In the west. I think it’s a scanning thing I have now,” Heather said to them, not truly understanding how all of this worked yet.
“Fine, I’ll do it. I’ll save you all, again, though I’m not entirely sure why,” Terra said.
Without another word, Terra flew into the sky towards the west until she disappeared from sight.
“So now what? Are we back to fighting the slime invasion or is it over?” Janine asked, but no one really knew the answer.
“I will fight that slimy thing to the death, figure out this new body of mine, and end it if the monster intends to continue the attempt to take over the planet,” Heather said in a slightly softer voice that resembled her own this time.
“No, the invasion is over. Narbosaurus isn’t stupid. It won’t risk the fight, but it has also found a new home. It won’t leave this planet. I’d suggest you two live together so it can be a constant reminder to the beast to stay in line,” Xule said to her and Heather cringed.
“I have a life. I have no intention of living with a monster, ever,” she replied and Bruce shook his head.
“The life you had before all of this is over. If you get angry at anyone and hurt them, even on accident, there would be no way to keep it a secret. We need to keep what happened here a secret. As far as anyone needs to know, you both died in the battle. We obviously can’t force you to do this, but for the good of the world, you should consider this,” Bruce said to her, and the crowd looked at one another.
“If the world even knows or suspects that the threat is still alive, chaos will never end. Paranoia will threaten everything you’ve ever built if you don’t do this,” Xule said to her and Heather narrowed her eyes.
“Aliens can exist, galactic alliances revealed, but one alien dinosaur and killer robot and it all falls apart. Perfect,” Heather said and looked away in frustration. It wasn’t fair. This whole situation was insane.
“In return for keeping this secret, I will personally see to it that you’re all taken care of for the rest of your life. Trust me, I know how it feels to keep a secret or two. I worked at Area 51 and other places. Sometimes, it’s better to keep horrible things secret. People aren’t ready,” he said, and the others couldn’t imagine what other nasty things inhabited the same world they lived in; a world that would now never be the same again.
“That monster still has my son captive somewhere. I need to know he is safe; I need to know where he is,” Madison said, unable to keep it in anymore. Heather looked at her.
“I will make sure that he is returned to you, don’t worry,” she said. Despite having all of this power, she barely felt like she could do anything else around here.
It was a bad situation she was in and now, everything she knew and loved was gone. She didn’t understand her new form and resisted displays of emotion, for there was no telling of what might happen.
“Uh, why don’t you leave the child rescue services to someone who can pull some actual strings there, missy? I don’t need any more wrecked towns in your quest to save one kid,” Bruce said to her. Heather just glared at him, but figured that he was right about this one.
Terra flew through the sky and sure enough, ahead of her were two planes heading in their direction.
“I could kill you all, but that’s not really my thing, so we’ll do this instead,” Terra said to herself and immediately split into several small strands of black flesh.
Airplanes presented a
tiny bit of a problem, but nothing the alien couldn’t handle. Those strands of flesh immediately broke through the glass in the cockpit on both planes and sunk into the flesh pilots.
The tiny holes in the glass were sealed up. The pilots struggled only for a few minutes before their eyes turned yellow.
“Mission aborted, returning to base,” one pilot said in a flat voice and both planes broke off their course to return from wherever they came from.
Terra reformed in the sky and watched them fly off. Terra didn’t want an unstoppable hybrid on her trail, so instead of disappearing, she decided to fly back towards the others, and for the first time, she had no idea as to what was going to come next.
Three weeks later.
Bob Mills sat at home in Florida, alone and unshaven in front of the television. The news was still stuck on the arrival of the aliens and the destruction of Las Vegas. He flipped through the channels, but everything had something related to the disaster; a disaster that would never leave him.
He held a bottle of beer in his left hand that was warm, and it fell out of his grasp only to land on another glass bottle. Bob didn’t care about this or much of anything anymore.
All he could do right now is wish the world had ended, because a world without Heather was one he could barely live in. His future was bleak as his world and the only thing he had left of her were pictures on the wall and memories. He didn’t know what he was going to do next.
Rose, Phil, and Jeff all returned to their jobs. The destruction of WTNV News in Las Vegas turned out to be a minor setback for the three of them. They immediately got a new job at GTOM News Network stationed out of Los Angeles.
In this planet-wide awakening, Rose became an overnight American celebrity, as she became known as ‘The Voice to the Stars’ with the help of a certain general pulling some strings for her, allowing her to get first chance at interviewing the survivors of the alien races from Garmonbozia’s assault; those who would be willing to be interviewed, at least.
Xule was the first interview she gave on public television after the crisis was over. It was the most watched interview in human history. Phil was given a book deal telling most of what happened. Of course, it was edited by a very special government official to tweak the ending of the book to match the cameraman’s newly edited video to show that Narbosaurus and Garmonbozia had indeed killed one another off in their battle.
Both Phil and the cameraman would be immortalized. Even though Jeff wasn’t there, the base’s security cameras caught most of the action. Jeff was given credit for the work.
As promised, Madison and her son Patrick were reunited. The two were forced to restart their lives in the small town of Ashwind. As the infection disappeared, the town was restored. She had enough of the big city. The two couldn’t be happier.
Cory remained in Ashwind. His parents’ house was quietly paid off by the government after they were confirmed dead in the Narbosaurus incident and for his service to the country, showing bravery when there was no reason to do so. He wasn’t offered any medals, nor did he ask for any special treatment.
Madison and Cory remain friends, despite not having much in common besides their brief experiences together.
The rest of Ashwind’s inhabitants, despite the mysterious gas explosion, were saved because of the infection. The only one who went missing was Bob, the mysterious gas attendant. The crater still remains, but no trace of him ever did turn up.
His house was empty when they looked into his disappearance save for one DVD of a popular movie series called The Delta Squad. Terra Mae Meier reappeared in Ashwind with no memory of what happened after she was infected. She no longer preaches of coming doom and keeps to herself, much to the relief of the town.
James Dodd and Phoenix Logan abandoned their true identities. After the disaster was over, they were afraid of the consequences of abandoning their duties as police officers, so they opted to disappear into the chaos of the refugee camp. Tina did not live through being frozen.
Logan mourns Tina’s death, and still doesn’t understand how she got infected; he blames himself. Due to the destruction of Vegas, no one is looking for them, and they are presumed to be dead along with the rest of the LVPD. They are just fine with this.
Dr. Alex Ferrous returned to Antarctica to study in an attempt to lose himself in his work to forget all this madness. He hopes to not find any more secrets buried in the ice. The last one proved to be quite disastrous.
His last report to the university was about a previously undiscovered mountain range and finding strange markings that resemble hieroglyphs in a cave and hasn’t been heard from since; that was two weeks ago.
Randall Quinn and Janine returned to Goldfield, and life in the small desert town quickly returned to normal, or as normal as life could be. The two of them would never tell anyone else what happened.
All the two of them wanted was to leave the ordeal behind them as much as they could. If anyone ever asked, the only real reply they would give is that they had enough of living in interesting times, and tried to leave it at that.
Bruce Williams returned to his normal job in the government and disappeared from public eye as he did before. The general made sure that everyone directly involved with the incident was being taken care of, and the other dark secrets of the earth remained a secret.
He was relieved that he didn’t have to worry about extraterrestrial life being a problem anymore as that cat was well out of the bag; of course, explaining the abductions was still going to be a problem. He was sure everything would work itself out.
President Tim Carr was put on trial for crimes against humanity once the public and Congress discovered that he ordered the extermination of the ones who lived through the containment effort.
Vice President Jim Sterling became president, but no one ever found out about his conversation with Fort Poseidon and his own attempt to do the same thing. He is currently preparing his new campaign. His slogan is reported to be ‘Thank God for Me,’ as he readily took credit for General Benton’s actions, acting against the orders of a vengeful president.
General Lars Benton was considered a national hero and awarded the Medal of Honor for going above the call of duty, saving anyone he could instead of exterminating them. He retired from the military shortly after, wanting nothing to do with any of it anymore.
Xule gave the most watched interview in human history before returning Nurid with Ulrix for a well-deserved vacation to all points nowhere. The planetary alliance, those who could do so, returned to their home worlds. Those who could not were provided with hospitality the best Earth could provide for them.
The Earth officially, and openly, joined the planetary alliance. Life on Earth would never be the same for anyone. While most of humanity did try, and accept alien life forms, many chose to give into the paranoia of the future they were sure was coming.
Gordon Marx refuses to leave his bunker; the rest of the world is fine with this. Prepper Radio has never been more active. MOLOK numbers station is still silent.
Heather and Terra sat on the porch of a white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere America. A gravel road passed by the place and no one ever drove on it. It was closed on both ends. No one was coming to visit. Narbosaurus had taken a liking to Terra’s form, and Heather was doing her best to maintain the new form she had.
“Well, this is fun,” Terra said to her as she began to rock in her chair.
“Yep, I wonder what is going to happen next,” Heather replied, but still couldn’t look at the thing next to her. She could see it for what it really was with her new eyes.
“Next? There is no next. We sit here until the world freezes again,” Terra replied, and Heather looked over to the setting sun.
“There is always a next. Nothing is ever over. You’ll see,” Heather said, but couldn’t bring herself to smile. She missed her old life terribly, and nothing was ever going to bring that back. The two of them watched the setting sun together as they had done
for past three weeks since coming here.
The future looked bright.
Read on for a free sample of Lords Of The Earth: A Kaiju Novel.
PROLOGUE: POPOCATEPETL
Popocatepetl had reverted to relative calm after the eruptions of 2016, but CENAPRED, the National Center for Disaster Prevention, continued its constant vigil of the volcano, aided in these telemetric observations by the Mexican Secretariat of the Interior and experts from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), as well as the collaboration of the US Geological Survey’s Cascades Volcano Observatory.
A week before the First Emergence, all fifteen stations on the slopes of Popocatepetl began to detect seismic activity as well as a spike in the levels of SO2 and CO2. The telemetry, analyzed by CENAPRED’s processing hub, triggered a series of automated messages to private cell phones and email addresses. Within the hour, the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee—made up of researchers from UNAM and CENAPRED—met to review more than fifty telemetric signals. The committee immediately recommended the government institute a phase-3 yellow alert and evacuate a radius of twenty kilometers.
The decision saved thousands of lives, a relatively small comfort given the millions of deaths to come.
For four days, nearby Mexico City and Puebla experienced a tremor or two every twelve hours, the shocks hovering around 2.5 in magnitude. Then, on the morning of the fifth day, Popocatepetl erupted violently with the force of 18 megatons of TNT, sending a column of ash fifteen kilometers into the air and a wave of lava—the pyroclastic flow—rushing down the slopes at 300 km/h.
Everything in a ten-kilometer radius was obliterated. For another fifteen kilometers beyond that, trees and structures were cropped close to the ground. Mere minutes after the eruption, the entire Izta-Popo Zoquiapan National Park had been laid waste, and several nearby towns were scorched and shattered.