Skyfire

by R J Johnson

  The private shrank back. “Sir, I…they’re legit, but I’m under orders to keep non-essential pers…”

  Washington shook his head and nodded to Ash. “I’m sorry Colonel, please come inside. We’ll get you up to date.”

  Satisfied, Ash glared at the private, who was obviously trying to keep from shitting his pants. “Excuse me, Private, time to go to work.”

  He bumped the private with his chest as he moved into the temporary command center built in the San Ellijo nuclear plant’s parking lot. The private stepped back and saluted. Ash appreciated the belated respect, and wondered if the private might end up scrubbing potatoes in some South American embassy.

  “Come this way, Colonel,” Washington said to Ash.

  The Colonel adjusted the pack strapped to his back and walked through the throngs of worried-looking men and women. He took stock of every detail, his eyes constantly on the move.

  “Near as we can figure, we have forty tangos inside Unit 3 right now. We have no communication with any friendlies inside, so we’re operating under the assumption that the terrorists have taken out all security and the remaining camera observation posts we had access to from here.”

  “Where are our forward operation posts?” Ash asked.

  Washington spread a map out on the table in front of him and pointed quickly to each side.

  “Here, here, and here,” Washington said, circling the positions with a red marker. Ash looked closely at each one and nodded. Whoever was inside the plant would have to go through at least a battalion of men at every exit point. On top of that, three destroyers, which had been nearby running training exercises, were covering the sea. Their crews would get to do the real thing today.

  Ash picked up the map and glanced at the Lieutenant. “I’ll head for the forward post and see what I can see from there. Keep me informed if they make contact.”

  “You got it, Colonel,” Washington said.

  Ash snapped off a salute and began moving toward the position closest to the plant. After a short walk, Ash approached a guard standing at attention and keeping his rifle aimed downrange, his finger resting above the trigger while he periodically peered through his binoculars.

  Ash snapped his fingers at the private, who handed the binoculars to him. He looked carefully through the digital display for any sign of Collier.

  “How many men have you seen enter and exit the facility?” Ash asked without taking the binoculars from his eyes.

  “None so far,” the private answered smartly. “We’ve only been here for an hour, so if he has a team in place, they’re embedded well.”

  “Who’s in charge of the tactical assault?”

  “Lieutenant Washington,” the private said. “He’s got all hands on deck for this one.”

  “He’ll need ‘em,” Ash said softly to himself.

  “Sir?” the private asked.

  “How many are there?” Ash asked, his voice commanding.

  “Intel says there’s only one.”

  Ash scowled at that. “Impossible. Washington said forty inside at the minimum.”

  “That may be his assessment, sir, but the only person we have on camera is the same man we saw yesterday at the Federal Reserve,” the private said, obviously eager to please.

  Ash put the binoculars down and decided on a course of action. It would be risky, but what was life without a little risk?

  “Private,” Ash said turning to the man next to him, “your weapon, please.”

  The private’s eyes went wide. “Sir?”

  “Can’t go in there without a weapon,” Ash said without a trace of humor. “I had to check mine at the gate.”

  The private drew a slack-jawed breath. Ash shifted his weight. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

  “I think…” the private began, but Ash didn’t give him a chance to protest any further. He clubbed the young man on the jaw with his massive fist, dropping him like a bag of potatoes. After quickly checking the man’s pulse, he stood and raised his voice.

  “Medic!”

  A team of men rushed over to him and helped Ash lay the man down gently on the ground. “This man collapsed,” Ash said urgently. “Get him to a medic right now!”

  Ash helped them pick the private up and stabilize his neck with a plastic collar. He pulled the man’s .45 pistol out of his holster, along with the extra magazines, and picked up the man’s rifle. “I’ll take his watch; you get him back to the tent.”

  The team quickly secured the young private to the stiff board and picked him up, moving with battle-forged efficiency.

  Ash turned and looked at the chaos of the scene. Other officers were crowding around the young man, demanding answers, and asking whether or not the terrorists inside could have been responsible for his injuries.

  As the hubbub moved away, Ash waited until he was alone. He then pulled out a set of large bolt cutters and cut through the nearby fence as quickly as he dared.

  Sneaking through the opening he made, he put the tools back into his bag, along with the pistol and extra ammunition. He tied the rifle to the bag’s line and began to run through the field of high grass, stumbling over some uneven dirt mounds along the way.

  As he darted across the field separating the nuclear plant from the mustered federal response, his form began to shift into a cheetah, the bag around his neck dangling below the massive beast’s two front paws.

  Once the cheetah reached the edge of the nuclear plant, it darted around a corner and out of site from the Federal authorities.

  Alex retook his form and unhooked the bag from his neck, shifting back into his normal body. It had taken him a few tries to get Ash’s look right, but when the stone realized what he was doing, it reached into his subconscious to make him Ash’s exact doppelganger. The credentials even appeared within his pocket without any prompting. The stone had thought of everything. Siobhan would be proud, he thought with a smile.

  Raising his head, he gave another loud whistle, and the sound echoed through the deserted industrial park.

  Three birds of varying size and plumage beat their wings towards him. Alex waved them into the covered entrance. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on each of them, linking them in his mind to the shapeshifting stone. One by one, his friends returned to their true form, all of them stark naked.

  Emily did her best to cover her modesty as Alex took her clothes from his bag, tossing them to her the second she finished shifting. By the time Christina and Scott finished shifting back into human form, she’d finished getting dressed. In contrast to her friend, Christina made no effort to hide her perfect body. Scott stared at her, his mouth on the ground.

  “Scott,” Alex said sharply as he tossed his clothes to him, “time to put away Tiny and get ready to kick bad guy ass.”

  Scott shook himself back to reality and started getting dressed. Christina tossed him a knowing look and accepted her clothes from Alex.

  “How’d you get in?” Emily asked quickly.

  “An old friend helped me out,” Alex replied. Emily didn’t ask what that meant. Probably because she had bigger things on her mind, he figured.

  “Okay,” Scott said once he finished dressing, “what now?”

  Alex stepped forward and peered into the corridor. “He knows we’re here. He wants a confrontation.”

  “How do you know?” Emily asked, quietly following him into the corridor.

  “I can feel him,” Alex replied simply. It was true; he could. The healing stone hanging around his neck had been pulsating ever since he’d gotten close to the nuclear plant, and he didn’t think it was because the plant was trying to kill him. It was more than that. Collier’s stone was calling.

  He’d felt something similar back at Joshua Tree, but hadn’t been able to quantify it properly. He had dismissed it at the time as a side effect of the two stones together.

  When Siobhan had been close to him, he hadn’t felt anything like what he was experiencing now. Alex decided the feeling must
be stronger now because he held two of the stones. He didn’t want to jinx himself, but he thought perhaps he was finally beginning to understand the stones a bit.

  They were calling to each other, bringing themselves all together for some unknown purpose. And one of the stones had fallen into the hands of the one man who could excise all the pain and lies between himself and Emily.

  Was that fate, Alex wondered, or a simple coincidence? He decided it had to be the former. There was a purpose to the way this was all playing out, and Alex couldn’t help but feel like he was being directed down a path. He had no idea where the path led, but at least this time he would go into it with his head held high and make sure he did the right thing.

  No matter where that led him.

  Sweet karmic revenge, Alex thought to himself. He tossed his head back and laughed heartily. Scott and Christina gave him a weird look.

  “Are you okay, buddy?” Scott asked, sounding worried. Alex realized that, having seen what the stone had done to Collier, Scott might be worried the same thing was happening to him.

  “I’m fine,” Alex said. “The universe is just laughing at me again, that’s all.”

  “I know that feeling,” Scott said with a chuckle.

  “Are you ready?” Alex asked his friends. They nodded in unison, looking more confident than they probably felt.

  Alex turned to the camera and waved.

  The door to Unit 3 opened.

  The four of them looked down the expansive hallway, seeing evidence of burning fires scattered through the corridor.

  Scott gulped. “Well, that’s unsettling.”

  “Stay behind me,” Alex said, and they obediently fell in line, letting him take point. Alex made sure they were all in range of his healing ability.

  The speakers above him in the hallway clicked on, and Maxwell Collier’s voice echoed through the plant.

  “You shouldn’t have come, Emily.”

  “Max!” Emily called out to the hallway. “What are you doing? You’ve got to stop this!”

  “I don’t have to stop anything!” he hissed at her over the speakers.

  The lights in the hallway brightened as a huge surge of power flowed through the grid.

  “Did you see that?” Collier’s voice taunted them. “That was me! I control it all.”

  “You’re going to lay waste to Southern California for what? Revenge?” Scott shouted at the ceiling. “Alex isn’t worth it.”

  “Thanks, buddy,” Alex said sarcastically.

  “He’s right, Max! Alex isn’t a threat to you. Can’t you see that? Don’t you care what you might do to people?” Emily shouted. “Would you destroy everything I care about just because you’re angry?”

  “Why should I care what people think? No one cares for me!” Collier spat at the mic he was holding. He concentrated on the pressurized water reactor behind him. He felt the generators spin up and the water inside the coolant tubes grow hotter, exceeding the temperature for which it was designed.

  Sparks flew from the console around him. Fires broke out all over the plant, and he loved it.

  “Why should I give a damn about anyone else?” he said slowly. “No one’s ever given a damn about me. I’ve spent my whole life alone! Hell, even the person I was supposed to marry didn’t want to move down and support me while we started our lives together.”

  “That’s not true!” Emily protested. “What was I supposed to do? Abandon my career?”

  “You were supposed to support me!” Collier screamed back into the microphone. He felt the panel behind him explode as warning bells began sounding all around him. With the slightest thought, he could make the whole reaction run away. He felt the power asking him, begging him to take it, to use it, to destroy. To ring out in chaos and let entropy rule.

  “I did support you,” Emily pleaded. “But it’s a two-way street. I thought you understood that.”

  “And I thought you understood what it was like to be lonely in this miserable world. When you find a kindred soul, you never let it out of your sight. When two people are meant to be, they stay together no matter the cost, no matter the wait. The only thing that’s kept me alive the last three years was you! Don’t you understand that?” Collier asked. He felt tears begin to well up in his eyes. He hardened his resolve. The generators behind him spun faster, struggling to keep up with the increased temperature of the reactor.

  “You’re just like everyone else,” Collier said, feeling the darkness overtake him. “You don’t understand me. No one ever did. You took me for granted; dismissing anything I might offer you.”

  Collier felt the last bits of his former life slip away. He embraced the rage. “And I swear to you now, no one will ever take me for granted again.”

  “Maxwell,” Emily pleaded, “please, stop this now!”

  The mic clicked off. The lights in the hallway exploded, arcing electricity sparking out toward her.

  Alex didn’t even think to shout a warning; he just pushed her out of the way. He jumped in front of the arcing beam and absorbed the hit, his healing stone taking care of the damage. His body was thrown back by the grounded current as more of it exploded out of the walls.

  The corridor echoed with laughter. Scott moved to help Alex up.

  “You okay?” he asked, looking Alex over. “You took a hit there.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” Alex wheezed. He felt the stone begin to heal the brand-new scar on his chest. He glanced at Emily. “Convinced yet?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled out the pistol Alex had liberated from the young private. She checked the chamber for a round, then pulled back the action, clicking the safety off.

  Alex nodded, and they moved down the hallway together hoping to stop the maniac before he threw southern California into the dark ages.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The suburban skittered through the gravel parking lot, approaching the runway of the small Zambian airport. Kline exited the vehicle with his usual efficiency, jumping up the stairs of the jet. The pilot already had the flight plan filed and engines spun up, Geoffrey had warned him that they were coming in hot with a lot of angry people behind them.

  Kline had thought about using the stone to move them directly to the airport, but had decided against the idea. He disliked the idea that Ododa had somehow been able to resist his other stone. With that in mind, he didn’t want to take a chance with the new stone until he had a better chance to test it out.

  The police had stopped their suburban for speeding on its way to the airport, but a large cash bribe stuffed into the officer’s pocket had turned a possible trip to jail into a police escort that allowed them to arrive at the airport in record time despite the traffic flooding the streets.

  Geoffrey stepped out of the car and threw another wad of cash to the police officer who’d stopped them. “You never saw us.”

  The officer picked up the cash slowly and nodded, collecting it into a neat pile. Tate turned and ran for the stairway of the private jet, jumping onto the plane just as it began to taxi away. He closed the airplane door and entered the cabin stepping, past the beautiful flight attendant, ignoring the question of whether or not he wanted a mimosa for takeoff.

  He had bigger worries right now.

  Mainly that his employer was slowly turning into a god, and it wasn’t looking good for any of the puny mortals who hung around him. Tate swallowed and decided that he needed to find another way to be useful to Kline, lest he believe his new powers meant he didn’t need a fixer like Tate anymore.

  “Mr. Tate!” Kline’s voice rang out from the rear of the cabin. Tate stumbled to one side as the plane began to accelerate and take off.

  Tate made his way toward his boss’ office and watched Kline examine his new prize.

  “Excellent job out there today,” Kline said pleasantly. “I dare say you’ve more than proven your worth.”

  Tate swallowed hard. It never ended well when Kline was nice to him.

&nbs
p; “With that in mind, I wish to reward you for your faith in me.”

  Tate closed his eyes and thought of his hellish plunge back to Earth. It would be just like Kline to kill him right after saving him from such a fate.

  He heard his boss chuckle, and after a moment he opened one eye.

  “Why on Earth would I kill you?”

  Tate swallowed and wondered if Kline could read minds now as well. That would not be a good thing for a man with an unguarded mind like his.

  Kline grinned, “Indeed I can. And yes, I will pardon you for every intrusive thought you’ve had so far. I believe that your actions speak far more clearly as to your motivations.” He pushed a tablet over to Tate.

  “My wish is that this small token of my thanks will help you understand just what we can accomplish together.”

  Tate picked up the tablet suspiciously and looked down at several very official-looking documents. Tate scrolled through them one by one, his eyebrow rising as he read what they had to say.

  “You’re giving me your mines in the copper belt?” Tate asked, his eyes widening in surprise. “But…why?”

  “Because I no longer need them,” Kline said smiling maliciously. “When I am through collecting the twelve stones, I will need effective administrators to run different parts of the globe. I think getting you started with several billion dollars’ worth of mining investments ought to give you a nice advantage on those who might oppose your administration.”

  Tate’s jaw dropped as he realized what Kline was telling him. Kline waved it off. “This is a pittance compared to what I have in mind for myself. Take the reward as a down payment for future services.”

  Tate swallowed and nodded, thinking of what he now controlled. Billions of dollars, all his to burn, or use to destroy his enemies with once his time came.

  Kline grinned and stood, slapping Tate on the back. “How does it feel to be one of the 1%?”

  “It feels…good?” Tate said, still overwhelmed by the sudden change in fortune.

  “Excellent,” Kline said with glee. “Now, regarding your plan to destroy Mr. McCray.”