Virtual Heaven, Redux

by Taylor Kole

  The pilot’s words echoed in Tim. Become a martyr? A noble death, sure. Though it flew in the face of him leading society to a renewed time of faith, sacrifice, and discipline for the Lord.

  The pilot shook his head, as if denying his intention. “This guy could wipe out our entire fleet.”

  Perhaps a dozen helicopters had elevated to this new height. With the MD in the middle, they all converged on a single source.

  The assault chopper appeared smaller than he imagined. Compact, painted in a tiger-stripe pattern of brown and mustard. Thick with armor, near invisible when plastered against the mountain backdrop.

  The attack helicopter flittered, skipped, rose and fell like a hummingbird. Two gun barrels near its nose flashed, followed by the clattering buzz saw, then silence. Tim pursed his lips.

  The enemy craft climbed with the grace of a ballerina, ripped off another burst of fire, and turned healthy craft into confetti.

  The smell of burning fuel suffused with unsullied mountain air. The nearest Lord’s Thorn helicopter was a hundred feet from their target. Tim focused on it, willed success into his comrade. If the tan, tiger-striped craft stayed distracted a few more seconds…

  Right before a guaranteed kamikaze strike, the bumblebee reversed its angle, tilted its nose at the ramming helicopter, and activated the buzzsaw.

  Tim grimaced at the effect huge bullets had on the commercial crafts. It lurched to the side as if hit with a three-punch combo, and, as if slugged in the gut by a titan, dropped down and to the side.

  Tim jumped at the next buzz saw. Damn, he was close now.

  Six hundred yards out. Fourth in line. He and his men would soon be dead, in a vain sacrifice.

  He slipped into a quiet acquiescence. He envisioned the enemy pilot relaxed in that cockpit, listening to Mozart, sniffing an aged cognac before finding a target and depressing the trigger.

  The kamikaze pilots were adding difficulty. Longer breaks between kills, but it seemed the entire mission was lost, unless this guy ran out of bullets.

  Another destroyed craft. This close, Tim spotted the softball-size holes left by the ammunition.

  He secretly hoped one of those massive rounds took him in the chest. That seemed preferable to screaming in a freefall.

  Tim’s eyes grew wide with an idea: The fifty cals in the back. His false hope ended before it began. He didn’t have the time to dig out the guns, let alone load, aim, and fire.

  Giving his life for his cause, his Lord, and his men was no problem, but knowing that service would be as human fodder depressed him.

  Three crafts back. The preceding duo before him went high and low.

  Tim rubbed the patches on his vest. “God, grant them success. Thank You for all of Your blessings, for the gift of life. Accept me and my men into Your heavenly embrace.”

  Before he decided to join his men in the rear—and pass along his peace—an object entered his peripheral. A small, two-person reconnaissance helicopter, painted all black, hovered over the eastern mountain ridge, as if a spectator to the abattoir of steel.

  Buzz saw, break. The lead Lord’s Thorn helicopter exploded. Tim was now second in line.

  A beachball-size periscope hung from the spectator’s bottom. It was an Army XL42 spotter. The craft looked new, waxed, but what was it doing here?

  It dipped behind the mountain, leaving Tim to wonder if he had hallucinated the image. Before he processed it all, a craft he’d saw a thousand time popped up from behind that ridge line. He’d had a poster of an Apache AH-64 on his wall since the age of twelve. A rub of his eyes proved it was really there.

  The Apache floated in the bumblebee’s blind spot. It casually faced the dancing copter of death.

  A cough of smoke erupted from under the Apache’s right wing, headed straight for their enemy.

  Tim slapped the pilot’s shoulder, squeezed, and pointed. The pilot yanked on the stick, throwing everyone off-balance as the MD climbed and banked. Thankfully, Tim saw the heat-guided rocket meet their nemesis, transform metal into fire, heavy fragments, and an explosion loud enough to ripple the valley.

  The cheers of a thousand men overtook the whooping of rotor blades.

  Tim shook the pilot in triumph.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen,” a new voice came over the radio—clear, crisp—silencing the celebration. “Captain Riley Parker, United States Army, at your service. Hoo-rah!”

  Tim had never wanted to be an American soldier. He often envisioned them as his enemy. Those feelings vanished as he joined a hundred other men by yelling, “Hoo-rah.”

  “You gentlemen have a pleasant and safe afternoon. Captain Riley Parker, signing off.”

  Voices shouted. The men in the back pumped their fists, cheered, clamped onto one another. Tim didn’t bother asking them to watch their movements. They’d been tested, and they’d thwarted evil. He closed his eyes, thanked God, and asked Him to help preserve these emotions. Today would always be his first time cheating death.

  As the helicopters settled and regrouped, Tim estimated eighty percent of their fleet had survived. His craft assumed a spot on the pack’s outer edge, closest to the approaching city.

  Hot waves of anger washed over Tim. This defenseless murder might backfire on the folks at Eridu.

  Patting each man on the shoulder, he stared into their eyes until they shared his focus. This had become personal. For all he knew, Alan was dead.

  The radio chatter dimmed to words of encouragement, prayers for those fallen.

  With a bit more determination, the fleet continued toward the sinister home of Adisah Boomul.

  “Approaching target,” said the voice in his headset. Clear. Distinct. With no fear.

  Tim could see the tip of the Hotel La Berce in the distance, like a spear thrust in the ground as a challenge.

  A red bulb illuminated inside the fuselage, signifying the front of the formation had reached the range of small arms fire.

  How many of the steel titans initially leading the pack remained? They had anticipated their outer shell to draw the majority of the rifle rounds. The floorboards and cockpit had been lined with Kevlar to provide extra safety. Kevlar and inch-thick steel would be like toilet paper against ten millimeter cannon fire.

  The buildings were clearly in view now. Tim saw movement on rooftops. He heard the familiar pop-pop-pop of small arms fire. Originally, he’d thought that sound would jack his nerves—knowing people fired at him and his—but after the earlier terror, recognizing the caliber brought relief.

  “Contact,” came through the radio.

  Contact? A surge of adrenaline. A survey out the windshield. No flighty choppers. Tim eased back, rubbed the patches on his vest, and prayed for the safety of the lead men.

  Continual patters of rifle reports echoed off the canyon. He gripped the strap and leaned out. Each rooftop held armed Eridu staff. These were the leftovers, shooting in hopes of a lucky hit. The majority of their forces would protect the Atrium, where they housed the equipment, and most likely Adisah Boomul.

  After the earlier battle, Tim now disliked flying on the outermost edge, closest to the buildings, basically defenseless.

  The increased sound of gunfire alerted him that someone targeted his MD. They passed within a hundred yards of the nearest building. Plenty close enough to take a round. Using an inner calm, he visualized the landing. It would be chaotic, men screaming, wounds gaping, explosions all around. He would spot Adisah Boomul in the distance. The man would be rotating his arms in wide circles, chanting some satanic prayer to summon some hideous demon from the pits of hell. The earth would start to rumble as the beast woke. Some men would panic, a few others would run. Not Tim. He’d aim down his rifle sight, and from two hundred yards, score a head shot, splattering brain mist and matter. No more warlock. Hero born.

  Tink. A bullet punched through the floorboard in between his men, bringing him back to the present. Judging from the relieved grins on the surrounding faces, no one had been hit.


  Through the headset he heard someone say, “Wave one down.”

  Tim glanced outside, knowing that the Lord’s Thorn had boots on the ground. The two-way battle had commenced.

  A trio of Eridu soldiers ran across a roof three hundred yards ahead. They lumbered with a tilt, as if weighted, drawing Tim’s attention. The three men worked as a unit. As he recognized their maneuvers, his blood froze.

  The men lugged an A-98 LAW rocket launcher. It was rectangular, the length of a pool stick, and as square as a small microwave. It was also a weapon capable of firing four heat-seeking stinger missiles.

  The man in the center hefted the metal onto his shoulders. His spotter selected Tim’s approaching MD.

  Tim snatched at the pilot’s shoulder, tugged, and pointed to the trio, now engulfed in a cloud of smoke.

  The pilot yanked the stick right.

  Tim stumbled to the back for a better view. The missile traveled leisurely toward them in a looping patter that if followed with the eyes alone would cause vertigo.

  The pilot would either raise them high enough to avoid impact, or they’d explode. Deciding to increase his survival odds, he moved from his shoulder to a shooter’s grip, clicked off the safety, aimed, and fired a three-round burst at the missile. Dat-dat-dat.

  He fired again. Dat-dat-dat.

  On it came.

  Another short burst.

  Tingling heat he identified as horror filled him as the rocket tilted up, keeping pace with their climb. With his few remaining seconds, he looked off in the distance, at the previous location of the Apache and its spotter. Something would save him. This wasn’t his destiny.

  The scream of the missile’s propulsion system overtook the thump of the rotors.

  Closing his eyes, he rubbed the patch on his chest.

  One of his men screamed.

  In the middle of thanking God for all He had bestowed, a thirty-eight-pound rocket, traveling at a hundred and twenty miles per hour, slammed into Tim’s chest, drove him into the ceiling, and exploded with the force of three hundred sticks of dynamite.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Growing up in Gisenyi, a war-torn village outside the capital of Rwanda, Adisah Boomul understood tumult, suffering, and ignorance.

  Violence acted as a daily occurrence long before mayhem brought his nation fame. Being born in a corrupt land motivated Adisah to work harder, study more, and focus on getting out. Being Tutsi, it could be said the effort saved his life.

  He’d been living in America when the Botswana refugees rebelled against their government.

  Men had gathered to chant, march, protest their limited food, porous shelters, and inhumane treatment. They were gunned down with rifle fire, sparking a revolution. For years to follow, the entire population lived at risk of militant bombings and the equally volatile military sweeps.

  The insurgency ended in 1993, when President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front signed a power-sharing agreement. Months later, rebels shot down an airplane carrying President Habyarimana and Burundian President Ntaryamira. This instigated the greatest genocide in the continent’s history.

  The Hutu, a majority underclass distinguished by darker skin and short stature, attempted to eradicate their Tutsi neighbors using door-to-door sweeps, mob raids, and military assistance.

  In 1994, during a largely ignored, three-month stampede of murder, mutilation, and rape, the Hutus killed, overwhelming with machete, more than eight hundred thousand of their fellow citizens. Eight hundred thousand. He thanked God, near daily, that he had avoided that mayhem.

  His father’s position on the counsel and his mother having full-time employment as a nurse allowed him to be homeschooled. On the three days a week when both his mother and father worked, Adisah accompanied her during each twelve-hour shift.

  The awe of the hospice ward sent him into the field of electronics. He still remembered his amazement at learning that the wheezing, buzzing, and chiming machines all around him kept people alive. The reality that small boxes of electricity sustained organic life sent shockwaves of possibilities through his young mind.

  A lifetime later, he opened the Lobby to the infirmed the world over, and created a haven for those who suffered.

  The current gunfire outside the Atrium, and the people hustling and fretting around him, transported the elderly Adisah back to the walks with his mother along dirt streets. Back then, it seemed the simple act of holding her hand blotted out all horrors.

  A new-age Christian, she believed everything men created, or would create, came as a gift from God. Adisah wondered how she’d view a machine that trapped souls, instigated mass suicides, and generated social outrage. He assumed her initial frown would curl into a grin. She identified positives in everything; always predicted beneficial side effects, and considered each morning progress.

  “What should we do?” Dalton’s deep voice pulled Adisah from thoughts of his mother.

  He squinted and looked up at his loyal friend. He knew Dalton, along with most of the staff, viewed him as invincible, but he felt his age. Discomfort accompanied the simplest movements. Sleep either eluded him, or took hold at inappropriate times. His sight was dwindling, incontinence was on the horizon.

  Currently, he rested on a maroon sofa in the center of a serenely decorated room. Seven years ago, this section of the Atrium bustled with clients eager to enter the secretive Lobby.

  Gone were the glossy tiles and company walls. Now, the same stinkwood flooring he had in his La Berce condo decorated the floor. A koi pond and a cascading waterfall created the main attraction to the community center.

  Kids of all ages huddled around that pond. Many tossed food to the fish. When a gun cracked especially close, drawing a scream and everyone’s attention, one of the mothers pointed out a certain fish, another oohed at a splash. The distraction worked for the young, but the anxiety level climbed with the person’s age, climaxing with wide-eyed adults, who suspected that despite the immense security, Eridu had been overrun.

  Dalton positioned himself in front of his employer. “Some of the people are sneaking up to the access rooms. I don’t have to tell you their objectives.” He sought out the pond. “People want to know your thoughts.”

  Thwack! Glass shards tinkled upon the stinkwood. A bullet had punched through the protective glass on the front wall.

  Adisah glanced at where the projectile had entered. The aim had either been errant, or meant as a warning.

  The invaders had fully surrounded the old Atrium an hour ago. Demands from a bullhorn started thirty minutes after that.

  The bullhorn squawked, “We ain’t gonna wait all day.”

  “Let those who want to enter the Lobby go,” Adisah said as he kept his gaze on the ray of sunlight passing through the bullet hole. It epitomized the view of life he’d adopted from his mother. Every act, no matter how horrible, forwarded humanity toward a more positive future. Evil never prevailed. Everything, to differentiating degrees, ushered goodness. This pattern long ago revealed God’s existence to him.

  Though nowhere near the cost of the pain and suffering, even the Holocaust created a light. It unified a fractured people, alerted the world to the detriments of apathy, and defeating the Nazis filled the Allies with a generational pride. A pride that led to world-changing advancements in all fields.

  On the opposite end, guilt reshaped the next generation of German social philosophy. They learned to stand up against injustice, regardless of personal consequences.

  Adisah knew, when the next human atrocity that edged toward the magnitude of the Holocaust arose, the German people would oppose it to their last citizen.

  Dalton leaned closer, and spoke in a whisper. “Some parents are taking their children up there.”

  “That’s their right,” Adisah said. He then searched Dalton’s distraught face. “Are you seeking my permission to join them?”

  Dalton bolted upright. “Of course not. I don’t leave your side�
��you know that.”

  The firearm at Dalton’s hip smelled of cordite. Second-degree burns charred his left hand. Adisah heard men talking about how Dalton emptied a rifle, expended two of the pistol clips, and killed several of the intruders as he guided a small group from La Berce, first in a convoy, then on foot.

  Another member of his security team approached, pulled Dalton aside, and whispered in his ear.

  “Go in peace, brother,” Dalton said. “He understands your worry. He wishes you well.”

  The dark-skinned man who had whispered to Dalton stared at Adisah, sorrow evident on his features. Then he moved to a crowd, spread a message that drew many glances, then the group hurried to the elevators.

  Adisah would pray for them. Evidence abounded that the invaders lacked an interest in prisoners. They arrived for a duck hunt.

  A squawk. The bullhorn. “Come out with your hands up, slowly, and no one will be hurt.”

  Adisah wanted to believe them, yet he always trusted his eyes over another person’s mouth.

  That saying had applied to judging people as individuals, based on their merits, regardless of their past. He imagined it applied to this situation, but saw few alternate options.

  An argument existed that Adisah, through his dream to help those suffering had instigated this round of horror. Imagining the wonder that would follow a global strife of this depth kept him from wallowing in shame.

  “We have an active phone line,” a man yelled from behind Adisah, near the desk.

  “Get us some damn help,” Dalton barked. “The contact numbers are next to the phone.”

  “I can’t get an outside line.” The man shook his head in frustration. “But we have an incoming call.”

  “Answer it,” Adisah said. To Dalton, he motioned to the front door. “Tell them to stay calm. We have women and children inside. I will speak with them, if that is their wish.”

  Dalton pointed to a tall, wiry man with cornrows and pantomimed to his undershirt. “Go wave that in the doorway.”

  The man removed both of his shirts, placed the outer one back on and held the white undershirt above his head as he crept toward the front door.