Cole was about to close his locker, after unloading his book sack and gathering his books for first-hour, when he saw Charlotte Meadows peel off from her entourage and head to her locker.
Charlotte was in the 9th grade too. She was one of the in-crowd, though, and no one would know that she was a geeky freshman by the company she kept.
Pretending to adjust some books in his locker, Cole waited for Charlotte to come and open her locker, which was right next to his.
Charlotte, or Princess Charlotte as he would think of her sometimes because she was pretty enough to be a princess, was oblivious to his presence as she fumbled through her locker’s contents.
Cole’s heart noticeably sped in his chest, and he felt his face flush a bit. He had shared few words with her over the year, mostly just a hi or a hello, of which she usually politely returned. As far as initiating any other conversation, she had left that burden on him.
The smell of her shampoo or perfume, Cole had never got close enough for his nose to explore and locate the source, stirred some manly emotion in him that made him want to melt and go into a rage simultaneously.
Charlotte was the perfect height. If they stood face to face, he was only slightly taller, maybe by an inch as he was 5’9”. A perfect size in his mind for him to turn his head to the side and kiss her deeply on the lips. He would then slowly slide his right hand up her back, underneath the long, dark brown, straight and shiny hair, until it rested behind her head. With assurance, he would gently pull her head closer and part her mouth with his wanting tongue. She would be his, and he would be hers, forever, maybe.
Cole broke his reverie as his internal clock told him time was running out. He knew that Charlotte had recently broken up with Brennon Davis, a 10th grader and a fellow member on the junior varsity baseball team. If there ever was a time to try and make a move, it was now.
“Hi, Charlotte,” Cole said, closing his locker door just enough to look from behind it.
“Hey,” she sang in a low voice that sounded ten thousand miles away. Her gaze never left her duties.
“Have you done your science assignment for Mrs. Edwards? There’s only a week left before the end of the month,” Cole said.
“Not yet. In fact, I had kinda forgot about it.” She turned her gaze toward Cole.
Charlotte's long lashes accentuated her deep brown eyes surrounded by purplish eyeshadow. The blush shaded her cheek bones and made her look much older. Most girls her age dabbed blush on the apples of their cheeks, which made them look like clowns. Her lips looked like lavender candy that glistened like it had been freshly licked. “Well, uh, you know you have to do the assignment in pairs. Have you picked a partner?” Cole asked.
“No, not yet. I’ll just have to add it to a long list of other things I need to do and keep putting off. I’m bad that way, sometimes.”
Hearing the word bad from Charlotte’s mouth strangely made it sound like something good. “I don’t have a partner either, and I wanted to do my project tonight.”
“Something special about tonight?” Charlotte flipped her hair off her left shoulder.
“Yeah, The International Space Station will be flying over just after dusk. I’m going to have my video camera set up and my laptop outside. You can hear the astronauts speak live over the internet.”
“That does sound like an interesting project.”
“Hey, if you want,” Cole’s eyelids raised as if the thought just struck him, “you could come over to my house, and we could do the project together.”
Mr. Buddy’s mop slopped just behind Cole. The boy turned a quick gaze to the man as the janitor worked the mop back and forth on a spot on the floor. This was no time for distractions.
“Well, I don’t know…” Charlotte’s gaze turned to the side.
Cole couldn’t tell if she were actually considering the offer or if she was searching for an excuse.
“I know you live in a neighborhood and closer to the city. The space station will be harder to see with all those man-made lights. Where I live is pretty rural. Get your mom to drive you over. I’ve seen the space station pass overhead before. It travels across the sky in just a few minutes. I’ll video tape it and get the live audio. We can show it in class for our credit.”
“Hmm, can I think about it?” she asked.
Not a no, but not a yes. Was she just sparing his feelings? Cole felt his heart sink to his stomach, right before something slammed into his right shoulder. His body jerked forward, and his face implanted on the ‘I Want to Believe’ poster. Did Mr. Buddy just crash into him?
“ ’scuse me. I didn’t see you there.” It was Brennon Davis; the janitor had moved on to clean another area. A wide smirk etched above the athletic boy’s square jaw. His curly blonde hair combed back from his forehead and hung nearly to the collar of his jacket. Brennon was a good four inches taller than Cole but acted like it was four feet.
“Brennon! That was unnecessary,” Charlotte scolded.
Brennon’s smirk morphed into innocence. He raised an open palm on his right hand and reached for the ceiling. “I said excuse me.” He turned his gaze to Cole. “You heard me say excuse me, right?” Brennon’s apologetic tone ended after the excuse me. When he said right, it was a command to be obeyed.
“I’m okay,” Cole said, feeling a small knot start to swell on the ridge above his left eyebrow.
“See, he’s okay,” Brennon said and crossed his arms.
“What do you want? I told you to leave me alone,” Charlotte said, narrowing her gaze.
“Aw, don’t be that way. I told you I was sorry about the other night. You’ve got to lighten up a little. Give me another chance,” Brennon said.
“I’ve given you more chances than ten times at bat. You’ve struck out for the last time with me,” Charlotte said.
“Com’on. Let me pick you up after practice, and we’ll hit The Chimes. We can dig into some of that spinach and artichoke dip you like. Get some frozen yogurt later, just like old times,” Brennon said.
“I’ve got a date tonight.”
“A date? With who?” Brennon’s face contorted like someone had just told him his dog had died.
“With Cole.”
“A date? But—” Cole said before Charlotte followed up.
“I’m with Cole tonight. There are no more old times. There’re only new times. And the new times don’t include you.”
Red splotches appeared on Brennon’s face. His mouth quivered like a volcano threatening to erupt.
“Go to class, Brennon. If you’re late the coach will make you run extra laps,” Charlotte said.
Brennon hesitated, then shot his wild gaze upon Cole. “Your ass is mine. See you at practice.”
Bits of spittle from the hard p of practice showered Cole’s face as Brennon stomped off. He looked over at Charlotte, and said, “A date?”
“Sure, why not?” She acted as if this was the first time she had considered thinking of him as dateable material, and, the thought had some appeal.
“Well, okay then. Can you come around seven p.m.? The sun sets a little before eight,” Cole said.
“I will see you then.” Charlotte closed her locker, turned, and walked briskly away, turning once to give Cole a last glance before rounding the corner.
“A date?” Cole said in wonderment, only dreaming of this day but never believing it would come true.
The bump above his eyebrow throbbed. Every silver cloud had a dark lining. Now he had to hope he would still have most of his teeth after baseball practice.
Chapter 5
The Future
The seven Nu-Mans trotted down the escape tube toward the two-passenger jumpships, with Tarik bringing up the rear. So far they had suffered only two casualties, Jem, and Trant. The outside team led by Bix had already escaped, following the scientists and civilians committed to the project. The challenge now was for everyone to make it to a safe-house and mingle back into society, free from Skink interrogation. The st
rike team would resupply and meet in a couple of days. The stopwatch had started counting backward, and there was no way to stop it from reaching zero.
“Pair off and get the hell out of here. The Skinks’ satellites have been watching everything that’s gone down,” Zax said, coming to a stop and standing to the side while everyone else flew past to the awaiting jumpships.
Tarik slowed and stopped by his leader.
Zax waited for his fellow Nu-Mans to board the jumpships. The escape hatches were already open in the above granite leading to blue sky. They would be lucky if the Skinks hadn’t already targeted the area with missiles and getting a few down the throat before they could leave.
“We need to hurry,” Tarik said.
“And we will. Go ahead and get aboard our ship, and I’ll meet you there.”
Tarik didn’t delay. This whole mission rested ultimately on his shoulders. He had to live in order to give the mission a chance. Yes, his life was more important than any of the Nu-Mans, but that was a selfish way to think. Because if the strike team wasn’t intact to some degree, then they could never breach the Skink facility. Zax would have the same sense of loyalty to each of his fellow Nu-Mans as he did to Tarik. That’s why Tarik had such a deep fondness of the Nu-Man.
The jumpships left one by one out of the four escape hatches. Before the fourth ship left, Zax was sitting next to Tarik and strapping in. Fortunately, the jumpships were designed to carry Skinks dressed in their armor.
“You ready?” Tarik asked.
“Yeah, but you better let me drive. I don’t trust you with those metal gloves on.”
Good point, Tarik thought. He had never trained piloting a jumpship while wearing his transmetal armor.
The zero energy engine kicked in smoothly, lifting the ship up and over until the clear path allowed it to shoot into the air and bank sharply for its designation point.
A few seconds later, a large clap of thunder from behind had the jumpship riding shockwaves. The HUD showed a billowing, dark cloud rising from above the rebel’s nest. Gone, everything from his old way of life vanished in a blast of terrific heat normally felt on the surface of the sun.
“That was close,” Tarik said.
“Too close, and we’re not out of the woods yet. They’ll be able to track us until we touchdown. We’ll take it to the edge of the city and set down. After that, we’ll have to make it to the safe-house on foot.”
“Piece of cake. Sure, we’ll just blend in,” Tarik said, the sarcasm thick enough to be cut with a knife.
*
The jumpship took a jagged route, keeping as close to the ground as possible. The destination, Kansas City, Missouri, was only four hundred kilometers away. It was purely coincidental that the rebel nest and the Skink time jumping facility were located so close together. The nest site had been chosen because of its remoteness from large populated areas, and that had been years ago; long before any word of a time project. The Skinks had taken over a nuclear weapons plant as much of the necessary radioactive shielding was already in place.
“Is it really necessary to keep slinging us around like this?” Tarik asked. “I don’t care how low you fly. I bet the Skinks are tracking us. If you took a direct route, we could have been there in thirty minutes.”
“They may be tracking us but they don’t know where we’re going to land. A straight route will have them right on top of us when we set down. At least this way they can’t react until we do. It buys us a few precious minutes.”
The lavish green terrain had remained mostly unchanged in this area since the Skink invasion. Civilization sparsely populated the towering forests below.
Tarik had learned how to fly a jumpship at the base, but he had never been on a wild ride like this. The virtual simulator had him conditioned to some extent to handle the motion swings affecting his balance. But he hadn’t felt the abrupt g-force pulls at his body as Zax pushed the aircraft to its limits. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Zax snickered. “You better hope not with your armor on. That would be nasty.”
“There’s not enough room in here for me to open the helmet. I’ll just have to keep it down.”
“We’re not far, see? The industrial park outlines the city in this part of town.” Zax piloted the ship to the right, using the Missouri River as a path.
The trees in the distance gave way to concrete and steel giants. The race was just about to begin.
*
Zax set the jumpship down not far from the river’s edge. A swath of trees separated the muddy waters from an industrial warehouse some one hundred and fifty meters away. The canopy of the small craft opened, and Tarik and Zax wasted no time bailing off the side onto the soft ground.
With the Nu-Man in the lead with his blaster held tightly to his chest, Tarik matched step for step, falling slightly behind as his gait wasn’t quite as long. His HUD had the ability to scan an area up to sixty meters in all directions. Of course, solid objects did present problems. The trees they now weaved around filtered some of the information. Luckily, there was no electronic surveillance active and no sign of Skink or Nu-Man life around.
The woods gave way to flat land that led to a street named River Road. The two rebels hurried across the pavement, charging toward a fence that surrounded heavy equipment.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tarik asked between quick breaths.
“If you’re thinking about taking the bulldozer, no.”
“As if. That white truck over there. Let’s take it.”
“Works for me,” Zax said and pulled away as he sped on.
The big Nu-Man had the driver’s side door open and was examining the dash as Tarik stepped up. “Has the ignition been disabled?”
The engine purred to life with a soft hum. “No. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be. There aren’t many kids around nowadays to go on joy rides. No other reason to disable the ignition.”
Tarik searched his HUD. He was afraid he had let his guard down and suddenly felt exposed. Nothing. “I’m having second thoughts. It’s going to look strange if others see a Nu-Man escorting a Skink warrior in a work truck.”
“True,” Zax said and hesitated. “Here, get in the back and lay low. No one from street level will be able to see you back there.”
“Well, that’s the only choice we have. Drop the gate.”
Zax pushed a button on the dash and the tailgate lowered. The bed of the truck sank as he moved his transmetal covered body onto it, finally coming to rest on his back. “Let’s go.”
The door closed, the gate lifted, and soon the truck started a slow trek down a bumpy road. Clouds billowed in the open sky as Tarik forced his body to release the built up tension and relax.
It wasn’t long before the industrial buildings gave way to residential and commercial structures. He could see them lined on both sides of the street and his HUD outlined the people, both Skinks and Nu-Mans, as they carried on through an ordinary day.
Tarik wished he could shed his armor and watch from the back of the truck with his own eyes rather than view life through electronic lenses. Most of his life’s experiences had been filtered through a screen before reaching his eyes. Even the air he breathed right now was tainted by technology. What would the wind feel like blowing through his hair while he rode in the back of a truck? The different sights, the enormous variety of people. The different smells wafting from various restaurants. Tarik had never even been face to face with a Skink outside of his recent battle. What did their skin feel like? Was there any way that he could convince them to save the Nu-Mans? Perhaps he could appeal to them in such a way that they would continue the Nu-Mans’ endeavor to recreate the human race. It just seemed so wrong for a species to invade from another planet and take everything for themselves and leave nothing to Mother Earth’s firstborn.
The HUD issued an alert. A security cruiser was in the air a few blocks over and heading their way. “Zax, we got trouble. Overhead cruiser will be on top o
f us in no time. Registering a Skink warrior in the back of a truck driven by a Nu-Man is going to have them up our butts.”
“My butt isn’t big enough for that,” Zax said over his tel-com. “I’m going to have to park this thing…wait…there’s an alley between those buildings, where they keep the dumpsters. We’ll go there.”
The truck slowed to a stop and then turned. The sunlight faded quickly as the truck rolled down the alley. When the truck stopped again, Zax said, “Let’s go.”
The tailgate lowered, and Tarik shimmied out the back.
Zax had his blaster at the ready and searched for the next move.
The cruiser was sure to be able to see the signature of Tarik’s armor, but that wasn’t necessarily enough of a reason for them to investigate. Skinks dressed in transmetal armor maintained a loose presence in urban settings to maintain structured order. Nu-Mans had always been treated as free, but their relationship with the Skinks was not much different than that of master and slave. The aliens had molded the Nu-Man society into necessary subservience. With god-like technology mystifying the transitional human race, the Nu-Mans reached out to the Skinks as saviors upon the invasion of the planet. Willing slaves ready to receive consolation from strict but respectful masters. Of course, that was all a hundred years before the Skinks revealed that it was they who had introduced the virus on Earth before their appearance, which progressed humans in an artificial evolutionary step as the sasquatch-human hybrid.
Tarik suspected the recombinant DNA manipulation had quenched some of the independent fire humans possessed. He was often scolded by his teachers for his anarchy against the system. Nu-Mans, such as Zax and Bix, and the rest of the strike team, with a rebellious nature, were an anomaly. Skinks had never feared of a massive Nu-Man uprising. Rebel nests were rare. Insurgencies historically ended quickly.
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