“Mr. Gul, even though that gives me hope.” Parsin turns to General Tomer. “I don’t know if that will allay enough of the President’s concerns. Nevertheless, I will relay it to him. Fortunately, two facts exists,” he says, as he turns back to face Gul, “two missiles have not detonated.”
Gul can no longer face the General. He turns to the large screens on the wall, saying, “I’m sorry, General. But I’m so very anxious and nervous. I pray fervently to God that the remaining three do not detonate.”
General Parsin turns. As the white, red, and blue lights from the screen project their image into his eyes, he responds, “So do I, and everybody here, Mr. Gul…I and everybody here.”
Silence overcomes the room.
Suddenly, the first controller urgently announces, “Sir, we have fourth and fifth launches from the Pacific. Satellite imagery now on Screen 3.”
All eyes turn to the screen.
Screen 3 zooms out to reveal an elongated view of the globe. On the right are the three launches from the border of Iran and Iraq, at the center is the storm cloud over the Atlantic, to the left is the North American continent, and on the very left is the Pacific Ocean. Near the equator, at the center of the Pacific, are the two red, pulsating icons that represent the fourth and fifth missiles. The icons begin to move, marking paths to the U.S. west coast.
* * * * * * *
Powerless, closer and closer, down to the ocean, the goateed man freefalls, over the waters off the District of Columbia.
The fourth and fifth ICBMs have just launched from separate submarines, within the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, and are, respectively, three minutes and six minutes away from their targets.
Suddenly, the person grasping him from behind releases him, and then immediately disappears.
The strange golden sphere that surrounds them dissipates and floats away like a mist.
Then, feeling his powers return, he steadies himself, in the air, and quickly searches for what held him. He gasps, “Where did that come from? And where did it go to?”
A moment later, unexpectedly, the warhead of the third missile triggers. Just off the coast of the District of Columbia, the powerful nuclear explosion ensues.
He is completely vexed both by what has collided into him and by his sudden loss of powers. Now, his anxiety magnifies, as he senses the missile’s detonation. Turning his to see the oncoming explosion, he stares, frozen in awe.
Taking little time to reach him, the intense radiation and the vaporizing heat arrive.
Acting quickly, he moves himself a safe distance away, in the sky, and then begins to transform the tremendous energy from the blast, similar to what he did with the previous explosion.
People inland hear the quaking boom from the detonation. As they look up, they witness a suddenly-appearing, expansive cloud, increasing in size, instant by instant. In every direction, the cloud billows, swells, and surges. It expands from horizon to horizon, engulfing many other clouds along the coastline. In surprising speed, it stretches over the ocean and looms completely over several states of the east coast.
Then, with a bright flash of lightning and a deafening clap of thunder, the cloud briefly contracts then immediately expands, like a heart pounding into life. At that moment, it grows to more than twice its diameter, covering the states below in utter darkness. Another thunder delivers a flurry of tremendous winds, in all directions.
Those witnessing the incredible darkness consuming the heavens are shocked and amazed, because, within a brief moment, an enormous, massive storm cloud has just appeared above.
From the southern border of the state of Virginia and up to the north, into Pennsylvania, the storm cloud extends. Slowly, it begins to swirl, giving birth to more lightning and thunder. Then, rain and hail start to fall, and powerful winds gust over the land and sea.
While he shifts his attention to the fourth and fifth missiles, he tries to sense their exact location, and then he feels a weakness that physically affects his body. Unlike before, the feeling is not fleeting, and it does not leave him. His thoughts try to dismiss it nonetheless, I’ve gotta go on. I just have to get over it. Soon enough, I’ll be fine.
With not much time left to intercept the fourth missile, he disappears from the eastern sky and reappears in the skies of the west, high above the coast of Los Angeles.
He materializes just in time to see, over the ocean, the burgeoning explosion of a fifteen-megaton missile, just west of the coastline.
He is an instant too late.
This missile is both more sophisticated in its construction and more powerful in its devastation than the previous three. The high-pressure winds and blazing radiation take little time to bridge the distance between him and the center of the explosion. In front of him, he sees the individual particles of radiation follow a straight line to his eyes.
Before he can think, before he can react, a wave of high energy tears through him. They rip through the leather of his jacket and split through his jeans. Into his skin, muscles, and bones, they penetrate and severely damage every cell in his body.
A swift high-pressure wind follows the radiation, and he is strewn far away, within an instant. The wind peels away his jacket and tries to rip away his limbs.
With patches of radiation-damaged skin tearing away from his face, neck, and arms, he raises a shield to protect himself.
In a daze, he tries to repair his body.
Recovering minimally, he has an instant to focus, but has little time to think.
Acting on instinct, he immediately slows time. The speed of the wind is stunted, but the fast-traveling radiation is only partially slowed. As swiftly as possible, he begins to transform the barrage of high energy striking him into water vapor.
It saves him from his demise.
The transformation works its way in all directions around him with exponential speed. But as fast as the transformation is, it nevertheless will be unable to save the coastal cities due to the close distance of the missile’s detonation.
Before focusing on further healing himself, he realizes, If I don’t stop the plunge of that high-speed radiation, millions of lives are gonna be vaporized by it.
However, as his mind scans his body, he sees that the damage to it is greater than what he initially thought. Every part of his skin is burning, but he cannot yet feel the pain. If he were to stand on land, his joints would falter and would not sustain his weight. Now, his eyes are quickly losing their ability to see, and his senses start to erode.
Further and further down over the coastal cities, the intense fiery wave of destructions speeds unhindered and unfettered.
“I have to do this now!” he exclaims, “Slow down time to a crawl!” He needs to slow it to an extreme point that will allow the force particles to catch up and effectively quell the destroyer approaching the city. Even though he knows reversing time is impossible, he plans to get as close as possible to stopping it.
Suddenly, his body begins to feel the pain, and he screams in agony. With his hands uncontrollably quaking, his raw nerves start to transmit information of the damage throughout his body.
Fighting desperately to separate himself from the anguish, he determines that making the pulse waves from his body to more rapidly beat - to bring time to an effective standstill - will require all of his focus and strength. Now, with all his might and concentration, he harnesses all his thoughts, will, and energy.
Intently concentrating, he feels the veins and arteries in his heart and brain throb and swell, and the muscles throughout his body become tense and almost rigid.
As his body starts to generate the time-slowing pulses more rapidly, time’s pace begins to further slow.
But it is not sufficient.
With the pressure behind his eyes becoming unbearable, he tightens his lids shut, clenches his jaws, and grinds his teeth. Pulling in his arms and legs, he puts his body into a tense crouch.
Suddenly, he yells into the heavens in one last, profound eff
ort, and then flings his hands and arms out into the air, arching his whole body back. Like a cannon, his entire chest fires a tremendous stream of millions upon millions of force particles, ablaze in white-light brilliance.
Simultaneously, the time-slowing pulses begin to emit from his body so rapidly that they appear as one, solid sphere, enclosing the earth and stretching out into space.
Time comes to a virtual standstill.
Except for the anomaly of his own movement, the universe is silent and motionless.
Just before the massive wall of radiation reaches the tallest buildings of the cities below, the transformative force particles are able to consume it like water gushing over fire. Energy converts to matter; the radiation morphs into water.
From a height up in the atmosphere down to the coastline, all the energy from the nuclear explosion is in wondrous transformation. Enormous masses of water vapor grow and expand into cloud formations. They build upon themselves immense plumes and colossal billows. The third massive cloud, born of the fourth missile, begins to loom its dark and undefined form above the earth.
But he is now profoundly weakened, and his body is severely damaged.
Suddenly, an aching cold feeling rapidly overcomes his body. Conversely, an onslaught of heat overwhelms his head. For a brief moment, he remembers this same contrast of sensations from long ago: He was a child, weak and almost lifeless, fading in and out of consciousness while his worried mother clutched and cradled him in her arms. Her anxious eyes darted to and fro, as she frantically ran through the streets to find help for him.
He feels as he felt when he was that child - frail, powerless, dazed, helpless.
Struggling against it, he feebly says, “I can’t be fading away. Not now. There’s one more left…”
But without any warning, the energy in his body quickly drains. Even though he tries to fight it, his eyes begin to close uncontrollably.
With nothing able to stop time, it regains its steady flow.
Unable to harness his abilities, the feeling of helplessness overcomes him, as he begins to descend through the pristine vapors of the cloud. Powerless over his own body, he quietly submits to the fall. Gently, his body turns in the air, facing the heavens above. He catches a glimpse of the edge of the skies far away, arching over the U.S. east coast and the Atlantic Ocean. There, over land and over ocean, the frightening, dark, watery mass of a gigantic storm engulfs it.
Here in the west coast, the newly formed, tremendous storm gorges on the surrounding clouds. Half of the storm darkens and tosses the seas of the Pacific Ocean, and the other half mystifies and horrifies inhabitants of southern California, Nevada, and Arizona. Etching the earth with strikes of lightning, the storm marks its territory and traces its growth. Declaring its domain, it bellows raging thunder. Rain, hail, and dramatic winds begin to drench the overshadowed lands.
Half a world away, over the center of the Atlantic, the first storm, formed by the energy of the second missile, has expanded its gigantic girth. Soon, it will enclose both Northern Africa and Europe. Heralding its approach are sounds of the electric crackle of lightning and the rumbling thunder, illuminating and quaking the dark ocean.
Now, as he falls from a lofty height, his head burns, but his body is cold. In his weakness, he can only acquiesce to the control of the elements surrounding him.
“I’m starting not to feel my body,” he says, in a conceding whisper. “I can hardly move.”
Immediately above him, a tempest begins to swirl and fling rain down to the earth. As he falls through the air, the driving wind smashes heavy rain on his face. Lightning bolts strike, not far away, working their way closer to him.
With his arms and legs directed upward, his body quickly picks up speed, descending rapidly in a diagonal trajectory that rifles him through the sky above northern Los Angeles.
Then, he decides not to give in, but to fight, one final time, to save himself from his demise.
“This isn’t where it ends!” his thoughts emphatically declare. With the little energy he has remaining, he tries to turn his body around. Soon, he is able to turn one shoulder and stretch his arm down into the direction of his fall. Then, his head follows to face the ground. As his extended hand opens and closes, attempting to grasp the air whistling through his fingers, his other hand waves in the opposite direction, trying to assist in turning the rest of his body.
Crossing the California coastline, he reaches terminal velocity, with the wind rushing through his ears. Bolts of lightning seem to chase him across the sky, approaching closer and closer. Peals of thunder deafen his ears. The path of his fall takes him onto an open valley of brushes, weeds, and brown rusted dirt, just before the northern mountains of Los Angeles.
Then, his eyes catch the form of the light-green mantis, on the forearm of his extended hand. It appears to him now, just as it did when he was that child in his frightened mother’s arms. Carefully avoiding the burns and blisters on his skin, it pinches him with the thorn-like structures on its legs, trying to hold on against the rushing wind. Turning its head, it peers at him with its black-dotted eyes.
The ground fast approaches.
The body of the mantis twitches, as it pinches more tightly.
Mustering as much strength and concentration as possible, the man clenches his fists and stiffens his neck. With his head quivering and burning hot, he shouts a command for his fall to cease, “Stop!”
But, with his plunge unabated, there is no effect.
Then, starting to lose his consciousness, he whispers, “…stop.”
He mind begins to fade.
Before his eyes shut, he thinks he sees the mantis’ form dissipate into very fine, green dust and black, misty air. The dust swirls away, quickly passing across his weak and slowly closing eyes. Within a brief moment, the mantis wafts away.
As his body becomes limp, the wind directs his limbs into the angles it desires, and the rain continues to strike him, drenching his body.
Before reaching the ground, lightning ignites the muddied earth and marks his point of impact. The subsequent thunder shakes the foundations of the mountains around him.
With his eyes seeing only empty darkness, he loses consciousness.
Chapter 20
The rain pelts and strikes.
Heavy drops make popping sounds, as they land on the longhaired goateed man’s torn and burnt t-shirt and jeans.
From above, his body appears motionless.
Drenched, he lies chest-down against the dirt, with his limbs sprawled out from him.
The mantis is once again on his forearm, rhythmically squeezing it and pinching his skin, by digging its thorny legs into it. It seems to be trying to wake him.
However as his body recovers, he is in a deep sleep and cannot be awaken.
While he remains unconscious, his mind is active, feverishly repairing itself and repairing his damaged memories by means of dreams. Over the past weeks, through these many dreams, his mind has been attempting to retrace and reconstruct his memories. It is the only way it can, because while awake, the longhaired man actively prevents them from coming forward. He blocks them, and he vehemently rejects, in particular, the memory related to the deaths of his wife and son. Thus, his mind now fervently works. In the span of mere seconds, he sees three dreams that lay the remaining foundation of what will support the one crucial, final memory to be ultimately repaired: that of his family’s accident.
The first dream is similar to one he dreamt several weeks ago, of his family’s stay in Paris, and of the concierge who gave them directions to the Eiffel Tower.
In it, while in their Paris hotel, his family steps forward, after the concierge finishes helping a woman.
As he approaches, the longhaired man reads the concierge’s name pinned on the lapel of his burgundy coat, “Jean Luc,” and he also notices that the man is bald and between his fifties and sixties.
Looking through his silver oval-rimmed glasses, Jean Luc turns his attention
to the family of three, as they come forward to his counter.
The longhaired man notices Jean Luc fix his gaze directly upon him. It is a long stare, almost long enough to make him feel uncomfortable.
Then, strangely, Jean Luc puts on a bewildered face. But he catches himself and tries to regain his professional composure. Quickly turning to the goateed man’s wife, he smiles a warm welcome. “Bonjour. Madame, monsieur, et mon petit fils,” he greets invitingly in French.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” the longhaired man replies, “I was wondering if you could help us find our way to the, uh, Tour Eiffel.” He says Tour Eiffel with his best French accent, following it with a sheepish smile.
“You will be taking the metro?” Jean Luc responds, with clear English and a bit of a French accent.
“Oh, oui,” the man replies.
“Bon.” Jean Luc reaches for a pamphlet and unfolds it to a page depicting a map of the Paris metro system. He circles a point on the map with a pen, saying, “We are here. The closest station is here at Saint-Jacque on the Green Line, Six. You will take it this way to Charles de Gaulle Etoile, and it is better if you go down here at the Bir-Hakeim station.” Jean Luc circles the two stations on the map. “From here you can see signs to the Tour Eiffel, and it is maybe some streets away.”
Moments later, his family begins walking out through the large glass doors of the hotel, kept open by a doorman.
Jean Luc’s eyes follow them, as they exit the building, smiling kindly for the couple and their little son. His eyes slowly well with tears, but quickly, he turns to hide his emotions from those around.
As the longhaired man nods a “thank you” to the doorman, the dream transitions, and the glass door transforms into a solid dark-stained wooden door. His wife and son are no longer with him, and the doorman becomes a young man.
He follows the young man through the entrance of an apartment building. Then he sees the man slowly disappear, and the space around him becomes black. As he stops walking, he hears dead silence for a few seconds, and he begins to hear his own slow breathing.
RB 01 Through Flesh & Bone Page 53