by J. C. Diem
Nearing a convergence of several tunnels, I closed in on the immense group of prone clones. Kveet and human imps were crammed into the tunnels, lying cheek by jowl. Some even lay on top of each other in a hideous parody of affection.
Trembling on the verge of setting, the sun was about to disappear. I didn’t have much time to plan my attack. I carefully picked my way through the mob, nudging limbs out of the way so I didn’t step on them. As I neared the centre of the group, the sun winked out and scarlet eyes opened all around me as some of the clones began to rouse.
Being older than their larger brethren, the Kveet imps woke first. In a move fuelled by panic, I captured the closest creatures with my gaze before they could raise the alarm. Quickly shifting my eyes from one tiny monster to the next, I snared more and more of them as I knelt and groped for the heads of two former humans. The pair stirred beneath my touch but didn’t wake.
One of the Kveet that I had yet to hypnotize saw me and pointed with a tiny clawed hand. “Food?” it asked me hopefully.
“Not food,” I replied in its own language. Its tiny face fell in disappointment then I had no more time to interact with the imps. Roughly two hundred of the closest clones had gone still and pliant beneath my silent spell. A thought occurred to me that I almost dismissed. My inner voice backed the impulse so I decided to act on it. It might be a decision that I’d regret later but I had a nagging suspicion that my crazy idea just might come in handy. I gave an order to all of the Kveet that had fallen beneath my spell and they scurried into action.
Closing my eyes, I let the power build up until the train tracks vibrated. The imps that were still asleep snapped awake at the sound. The two I had my hands on stood and I was lifted several feet off the ground. I sent a jolt of power through them both that brought them down to their knees. My feet touched the ground and I opened my eyes to see thousands of monsters milling in confusion. Waiting until I felt the power spread out to touch every clone in the area, I finally released it.
The closest imps swelled alarmingly from the pressure of being inundated with my dark mojo and I realized I’d forgotten to undress. I was about to be covered in guts, gore and giblets. Even as the thought occurred to me, I was suddenly standing safely out of range of the carnage. With a gigantic, wet splat, every imp in the tunnel exploded. The hot smell of innards that were now on the outside was overwhelming. Fluorescent yellow blood mixed with grey flesh and pink brains in disturbing murals on the walls.
I searched for survivors and was amazed to realize I’d gotten them all with one blast of power. Mentally patting myself on the back for a job well done, I jogged back down the tunnel and returned to my group.
“Was there an explosion?” Sergeant Wesley asked as I stepped into the light. “I felt the ground shaking.”
“That was just my holy marks doing their job.”
“It felt like a bomb went off,” Higgins said.
“You could say it was a spiritual bomb,” Gregor replied. Maybe it was. I was immune to holy water, after all. Although I was marked with holy symbols, I had no explanation for why I couldn’t say God, Jesus or Christ out loud. In that way, I was just like every other vampire. It was nice not to be completely different from my own kind.
“Are they all dead?” Geordie asked me.
“The threat has been neutralized,” I confirmed then winced at his shrill giggle. I was starting to sound a bit too much like the soldiers that we were spending far too much time with.
Wesley used his radio to share the news with Sanderson.
“Good work,” the general responded. “Head back to Times Square for further orders.”
Free to make as much noise as they wanted now, the civilians in our group chatted excitedly about our numerous victories. I’d been wrong about the likelihood that we would suffer casualties. Everyone had survived our below-ground hunting trip. Of course, if I hadn’t single-handedly annihilated the group of five thousand opponents, the outcome would have been very different.
The soldiers knew they had me to thank for their good fortune. All twelve gave me nods of respect, which I returned solemnly. Like it or not, we would be working with these men and women for the foreseeable future. While I despised their commanding officer, the rest of them didn’t seem to be so bad, so far at least.
·~·
Chapter Fifteen
A quick sweep of my senses indicated that the other teams had also been efficient at hunting down their prey. Most of the clones were dead and only a few small pockets remained. Vindictive civilians, led by a few soldiers, blasted the last of them apart while we made our way back through the subway tunnels to emerge near Times Square.
Gesturing to Higgins, I gave him the good news. “Tell your boss that the city is now clone free.”
Letting out a whoop of joy, he reached for his radio then lowered it when he spied Sanderson through the crowd. He ran to update the general in person.
Clapping the corporal on the shoulder, Sanderson gave Higgins a wide smile then spoke into his own radio. He was too far away and there was too much noise coming from the milling civilians for me to be able to overhear him. I assumed he gave General Hart the good news before putting his radio away.
Several minutes later, President Rivers appeared on the gigantic TV screen. She beamed down on us like a pleased goddess raining praise on her worshipers. “Citizens and visitors of Manhattan, General Sanderson has informed me that all of the androids and clones have now been destroyed.”
A resounding cheer went up as relieved civilians and soldiers celebrated their victory. As Rivers launched into a congratulatory speech, I sensed movement high above. Tilting my head back, I followed the progress of the ship that I could sense but not see as it headed to the southwest.
“I take it the Viltarans are on the move?” Gregor asked. At my nod, he waved to get Sanderson’s attention.
“What’s wrong?” the general asked after struggling through the press of bodies to reach us. He studied my face, instinctively knowing I held the answer. That might be the case but that didn’t mean I had to relay the news to him.
“The alien spacecraft is leaving the city,” Gregor said.
Unsurprised, Sanderson reached for his radio again. “Do you know where they’re heading?”
“Natalie can sense only that they’re drifting towards the southwest. We do not know their final destination,” Gregor responded. “There is something you should know about our mutual enemies.” It was a subtle reminder that we were on the same side but Gregor was wasting his time. We might be allies right now but the truce wouldn’t last once we managed to kill off the Viltarans. We vampires would then become the most dangerous adversaries the humans had and they would feel compelled to try to kill us. They’d be in for one hell of a surprise when none of my friends died from their wounds. Their treachery would amount to nothing more than an annoyance to us. Personally, I wasn’t about to let any further backstabbing go unpunished.
Sanderson held his hand up to halt Gregor. “Don’t tell me, the ship is full of droids and clones, right?” He’d correctly assumed the attack on Manhattan was only the first of many to come.
“Correct,” Gregor confirmed. “There are roughly thirty thousand droids and eighty thousand more Kveet clones on board.”
Closing his eyes for a few moments, the general shook his head at the bad news. He then spoke into his radio. “Hart, are you there?”
“I’m here,” the other general replied. “Congratulations on your victory, Sanderson.”
“You might want to hold off on the congratulations,” Sanderson warned his colleague. “There are still more of these things on the alien ship.”
“How many more?”
Sanderson gave him the numbers and Hart couldn’t quite stifle his groan. “The ship is on the move,” Saderson continued. “It’s heading to the southwest.”
Putting aside his disappointment that the war had only just begun, Hart surged into action. “I’ll send a ferry to
pick you up. A jet is already waiting at JFK. It’ll be ready to fly as soon as we know which city the aliens are going to target next.”
“Roger that. We’ll head for the ferry asap,” Sanderson replied. He signalled for us to follow him and his men fell in behind us automatically as we trotted southward.
By the time we reached the southern tip of Manhattan, a ferry was waiting for us. Whatever the submersibles were, they hadn’t arrived in time to bring the reinforcements that we’d been promised. I hoped the extra soldiers were somewhere close by, because we were going to need them.
We piled onto the ferry and it immediately took off and headed towards Brooklyn. I tracked the Viltaran ship as it moved slowly across the U.S. ever to the southwest. It almost seemed to be searching for something. I figured it had found whatever it was looking for when it finally halted.
“The ship has stopped,” I told Gregor. Sitting across from me, he nodded but remained deep in thought.
“What do you think their next move will be?” Luc asked from his seat beside Gregor. Once, he’d sat by my side but now Geordie and Ishida were my constant companions. Now that Kokoro and Gregor were an item, it seemed I had adopted the former child king. He didn’t cling to my side like Geordie tended to but it appeared he was coming to rely on me as well. It had been unnerving enough having a two hundred year old vampire looking to me for guidance. Ishida was far, far older than that and he’d been a ruler for his entire unlife. To say I felt unqualified to be in charge of the pair was an understatement.
“I think the attack on Manhattan was just a test,” Gregor said. “They now know that the Americans’ defence capabilities are no match for their technology. They are aware that their ship is able to hide from their missiles. They have probably guessed that the humans won’t fire a nuclear weapon at their own people. If I were the Viltarans, I’d target an isolated city. I would ring the city in toxic gas at a distance most of the inhabitants won’t be affected by it. Then I would send in the clones to round up the humans and take them to the droids to be converted.”
“It doesn’t make sense for them to surround the city with gas,” Geordie said. “Wouldn’t they all be trapped inside forever?”
Gregor shook his head. “I think we will soon discover that the gas to the north of Manhattan is already beginning to dissipate. After seeing their own planet become all but uninhabitable, they won’t make the same mistake again. Their fuel supply will be almost gone by now and they have no way to return to Viltar. Remember, they want Earth to become their new home and they would no doubt prefer it to remain intact.”
“Over my undead body,” I muttered. Both Geordie and Ishida sniggered but I wasn’t trying to be funny. I might not particularly care about the earthlings but I didn’t want our planet to be overrun with droids and imps. Uldar wouldn’t be happy with anything but total subservience from every living, or unliving, being and I would never bend my knee to him. It might sound arrogant but I didn’t particularly relish the idea of bowing down to anyone.
Transportation had been arranged during our short ferry ride and a convoy of army trucks waited as we disembarked. We squished into the vehicles and took off without a fanfare. Horrified spectators lined the river, staring at the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The citizens of Manhattan had been extremely lucky. We’d managed to avert both of the disasters my dreams had predicted. They’d lost nearly eight hundred thousand souls to clone conversion or in the deadly blast from the ship but the rest had survived. It was a far better outcome than all of them being turned into clones, food or their entire city being reduced to a ruin. On the downside, I now had no idea what would happen next. My dreams had only shown me a glimpse of the Viltarans’ plans.
What do you think they’re going to do, my alter ego asked dourly. Throw a party and invite you all along? It didn’t wait for me to reply and inflicted its opinion on me. They’re going to continue to turn the flesh bags into imps until they have enough of them to take over the whole country. It wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. What I wanted to know was where the aliens would strike next. We’d managed to enter Manhattan before the Viltarans had attacked but we weren’t going to be so lucky next time.
Presumably heading for the JFK airport, we listened in as a report came through Sergeant Wesley’s radio. As Gregor predicted, the aliens had created a ring of toxic gas around a large but isolated city somewhere in Texas. Several airplanes had been spotted dropping out of the sky after being hit with an electromagnetic pulse. If the pilots had flown through the gas cloud, they would have died anyway. They passengers and crew had been doomed either way.
“The whole town is surrounded by that yellow vapour and there’s no way in or out,” Wesley summarized.
“Does anyone have a hazmat suit handy?” one of the soldiers asked sourly. A few chuckles sounded but most of the soldiers were too concerned to find any humour in the situation.
Entering the airport grounds, we were driven directly out onto the tarmac and over to a waiting army jet. It was far larger than any aircraft I’d seen before and could easily carry a couple of thousand soldiers. There were no seats and comfort obviously wasn’t an important factor.
Sanderson’s original team, of which there were still six hundred or so men and women left, boarded first. Fresh troops squeezed on next and my friends and I were last. More planes would meet us in Texas with several thousand more soldiers on board. They’d be bringing enough weapons and ammunition along to invade a small country.
In less time than I’d expected, we were airborne and heading towards the latest disaster zone. We landed a few miles away from the city that had come under attack. The private airstrip was tiny and only one plane at a time could land and offload its cargo of soldiers. The other planes circled above, being careful not to approach the city and risk being zapped by the spacecraft.
A plane that had been carrying a few civilians and special equipment had arrived before us. A large, camouflaged command tent had been erected by several industrious soldiers. Neat rows of hazmat suits waited for the soldiers to claim them. There wouldn’t be anywhere near enough for the tens of thousands of troopers who were on their way but there were enough for several thousand at least. Sanderson’s soldiers donned them in resignation. Sweat popped out on their brows almost immediately. No one bothered to put their helmets on yet. That would have to wait until crunch time or they’d risk passing out from the heat. I imagined they’d also have a limited amount of oxygen per suit and would have to use it sparingly.
Gregor waved away a frazzled civilian when he offered us a suit each. The man gave us sidelong looks as he handed the suits to some nearby soldiers instead. Going by his white lab coat, I figured he was a scientist. My friends gave the lab coated men and women unfriendly stares as they distributed the bright yellow outfits. They hadn’t forgotten their torture sessions in Colorado. Their terror, agony and helplessness would most likely linger for many centuries. I knew my rage wouldn’t dissipate any time soon.
We watched Sanderson and several other high ranking officers as they gathered in the command tent. At the general’s order, a sleek, heavily armoured army jeep was readied. Another white coated civilian bustled over to it and disappeared inside for a few minutes. He eventually climbed out, shut the door and gave the command tent the thumbs up.
“The soldiers do not think the Viltarans will just allow them to drive into the city, do they?” Luc asked no one in particular.
“The driver will be stranded once the electromagnetic pulse disables the vehicle,” Igor added.
Hovering close by as always, Higgins replied to both men. “No one will be inside the jeep. It will be controlled remotely by a scientist. He’ll be able to steer it using a camera mounted on the dashboard. It was just fitted with a device that will hopefully be able to test just how deadly the vapour is. If we’re lucky, it will tell us if we can make it through the toxic ring wearing these suits.” Sweat trickled from his brow to his jaw and he a
rmed it away. All of the people wearing the bright suits drank water to remain hydrated as they sweated inside their thick protective layer.
My friends and I moved closer to the tent to watch the proceedings. Sanderson and two colonels gathered around the scientist as he operated the remote control device. The jeep lurched into motion and we watched the action on a large monitor. It quickly approached the yellow cloud of gas and disappeared into it. For a couple of minutes, the screen was a whirling mass of dust and a golden fog. Then the monitor lit up with bright violet light as the vehicle was hit with a pulse ray. The screen went dark but they’d managed to get some readings on the toxicity of the gas.
“Your suits should keep you safe,” the scientist decided after studying the readouts. “But it would be a good idea to test them to be certain.”
“We can each escort a pair of soldiers into the city,” Luc offered.
“I would like to volunteer to test the suits, sir,” Higgins said to his commanding officer from right behind me. Sergeant Wesley stepped up beside him, also offering his services
Geordie threw them both a scowl. “What a surprise,” he muttered.
Sanderson chose twelve more soldiers to test their suits and the men donned their helmets. They would have enough air for an hour but it wouldn’t take us that long to reach the city. Slow and clumsy in their oversized outfits, the fourteen volunteers each chose a vampire to be their escort and stood beside us uncertainly.
Since it had been his idea, Luc took his test subjects firmly by the arm and sprinted towards the billowing yellow wall. The rest of us were right behind him, running so quickly that the soldiers’ feet left the ground and they probably felt like they were flying. I glanced at Higgins to see him wearing a huge grin behind the helmet. Sergeant Wesley had his eyes squeezed shut and was rapidly mumbling what sounded like a prayer.