by Nate Castle
Surge Together
Book 3 of the Sheffield Chronicles
Nate Castle
Contents
1. Rehabilitation
2. Poison Oak
3. Win The Day
4. Piece Of Mind
5. Rollover
6. Cage The Beast
7. Gravitational Pull
8. Now You See Me
9. Liar’s Dice
10. Forget Protocol
11. Isolated Incident
12. Uncanny Abilities
13. Navigational Beacons
14. Which Way Is West?
15. Take It Or Leave It
16. Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
17. Discovery Bay
18. Black and Gold
19. Child’s Play
20. Living Proof
21. Beach Bar Rum
22. Fancy Pants
23. Half Potential
1
Rehabilitation
“I definitely dodged a bullet huh, “ Logan said to Shelby.
It had been six weeks since Logan had one arm and one leg blown off by the Zyrgian aliens in front of the White House. He was propped up on a hospital bed, waiting for the doctor to bring his release papers. He had fully recovered from the series of events in ‘record-breaking’ time according to the doctor and now was sporting a prosthetic leg and arm. The technology had gotten to the point where very little rehab time was needed before the patient was back to 100% capability.
“You sure did, hun,” Shelby said.
The doctor entered the room and spoke up, “Try not to overexert yourself these new few weeks, but you’re okay to walk on it with no assistance mechanism.”
“You’re telling me that my leg is fake?”Logan said. It looks more real than my other leg!”
“Yes it was actually quite lucky that we had a prosthetic on hand that was your size. It would have been a struggle ordering one and hoping that the company shipped it within the next three months, given the current state of the country and all,” the doctor said.
“What’s the current state of the country?” Logan was curious.
“I’ll let your lady here fill you in on that, I have to check on some other patients. It was nice meeting you though Mr. Sheffield, and I wish you the best of luck. I’m leaving this packet here, all I need from you is your John Hancock on every page where I have put an ‘X’ and then you’re free to go.”
The doctor nodded at the two of them before exiting the room. Logan went through the packet and put his signature in the appropriate spots before standing up and embracing Shelby into a long-duration bear hug.
“Did you at any point think I was toast?” Logan said.
“No, I knew most people in the same situation you were in would have succumbed to their injuries, but you are not most people.
Logan grabbed ahold of Shelby’s hand and led the way out of the room, down a long hallway in the hospital. When they reached a main lobby waiting area at the end of the hallway, they were greeted by loud cheers.
Garrett, Hank, President Taylor, General Kaplan, and a few others who had all been there since the beginning of this Zyrgian alien mess, were among those who wanted to witness Logan’s release from the hospital.
“Oh hey guys,”Logan said trying to hold back his excitement, “How’s life treating you?
Garrett was the first responder, “Well if you had asked me that question a year ago my automatic response would have been ‘same old shit, different day’, but nowadays it’s almost like no two days have been the same. I wake up in the morning, I piss excellence, and then ask myself if the US is going to be attacked by aliens again today?”
“I see you've never been better, Gar, I love it!”Logan said.
President Taylor jumped in, “We’ve mainly been waiting for you to heal up before we make our next move. Things have quieted down quite a bit, but there are still major deficiencies in the country that need to be taken care of. There is no workforce, and food is more scarce than people think it is, but we’ll work through it and get the nation up and running again.
“Some of us are going elsewhere, you know, gotta get a change of scenery, get out of DC,” Hank said, “You gotta decide if you’re gonna stay in the area or head out with one of us.”
Logan looked at Shelby. This was something they hadn’t yet discussed. She nodded at him, which he figured meant that she trusted his judgment to make the decision.
“You got a destination in mind?” Logan said.
“Yeah, Garrett, Noel, and myself are going to Key West,” Hank said.
“I’ve heard worse ideas. Shelby and I will come with you,” Logan said, “When are we leaving?”
“In about five minutes.”
“Ok I just have to swing by the White House first and grab a things.
“No need we’ve already got your personal belongings loaded up in the truck,”Hank said.
“Damn, you’re on the ball. You knew I was going to say yes to coming to Key West, how?”
Hank just smiled.
“We’re going to miss having you around Logan, but I’m sure we’ll see you again at some point in the future, especially when the next alien attack hits,” General Kaplan said.
“Hey now, don’t joke around like that,”Logan said.
“You’re a champ Logan, we’ll catch you on the flip side,” President Taylor said and held out his hand for Logan to shake.
“I want you to want me, I need you to need me, I love you to love, ahh I beg you to beg me” Noel was singing at the top of her lungs before the others in the eight passenger Chevy Suburban joined in for the chorus, “Didn’t I , didn’t , I, didn’t I see you crying?”
It was definitely a fun road trip crew. They were about five hours into the trip that was expected to be eighteen hours of driving time, not including stops.Garrett was the driver, with Logan riding shotgun. Noel had discovered an LCD screen in the car that she could hook up to Youtube and play music videos from. Garrett was getting irritated at her, because it was starting to distract his driving.
“How can I focus when all you’re doing is putting half-naked women up on that screen?” Garrett said.
“I’m testing you to see how loyal you are,” Noel said as she coughed from chuckling.
“You’re crazy,” Garrett said.
Traveling at 80 mph felt like nothing until, BOOM, a loud sound resonated from the engine block and the car lost its power. Garrett’s reaction was to hit the breaks, which sent the Suburban into an uncontrollable skid. Luckily there were no other cars on this stretch on freeway, so he had plenty of room to spin out and still avoid a collision. He did just that and when the car finally screeched to a halt, everyone was on their feet with the doors opened, heading for the road, with the fear that the car was going to blow up.
Now a good 30 yards from the car, they could gather their thoughts.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Hank said.
“Something tells me that this incident wasn’t random,” Noel said.
“Who’s going to be the brave one and go pop the hood?” Shelby said.
It didn’t seem like the car was on fire or anything to be concerned about, or at least Garrett thought so. He approached the Suburban, reached inside the driver’s side door to pull the hood latch. Now with his head under the hood, he said to the others, “The electric cables are fried. I don't know where we can get cables installed besides at a government sponsored car repair shop. This looks like the work of—“
Ba-Boom-Thhhhhhhhh
Before Garrett could finish his sentence, the contents of the engine block detonated
in his face, giving him no fair chance to escape.
“Nooooooo!” Noel said, half crying half screaming.
Garrett’s face was charred and unrecognizable, he fell to the ground and lay there lifeless. The others knew before going over to him that he was gone. They stood there in shock for about four minutes before anyone spoke.
“Aliens,” Logan said.
“What?” Shelby said.
“His last words got cut off, I believe what he was trying to say though was that this is the work of aliens, not some random coincidence that the car power was drained and the car exploded,” Logan said.
“Come help me,” Noel said as she walked towards Garrett quickly.
Logan and Hank pushed her back away from the car.
“We got this.”
Logan grabbed the feet, Hank grabbed the arms and together they carried Garrett’s body to the shoulder of the road, away from another potential explosion.
“We have a couple decisions to make,” Logan said.
He scanned the perimeter for Shelby, she wasn’t standing next to Noel like she had been before. Past the shoulder, there was a grove of fruit trees, it was hard for your average joe to tell what kind of fruit was being produced, maybe apricots. Shelby was kneeling next to one of the trees with her head down. Logan approached her and put his arm on her shoulder. He didn’t say a word, he knew that Shelby needed a good listener right now.
“I was the one that told him to go check under the hood. This is on me,” she said. She couldn’t continue talking because her nose was runny and a puddle was being produced from her eyes. Logan used his burnt orange flannel as a handkerchief for her.
“In every movie I’ve ever seen, the car blows up following an accident. Why did I think that wouldn't happen in real life too? I’m going to have to live with this guilt for the rest of my life,” she said.
“You can’t beat yourself up Shel-Bear. One of us was going to check under the hood eventually, even if you hadn’t said that someone should. This past year has been so unpredictable we have very little control of what happens.”
He put his arms around her from behind, gave her a quick squeeze and a kiss on the top of the head before walking back to the others. She needed a few more minutes alone he figured.
“What next? Those options you mentioned earlier, I gather that you meant in terms of burial,” Hank said.
“Yup, we either find a spot to bury him here or we take him back to DC and do it there,” Logan said.
“I think Garrett would have wanted us to do it here. He was a very unselfish person and wouldn’t have wanted us to go to the trouble and put our lives at more risk to take him back to the White House. Besides, he was a Pacific Northwest boy, so if we were to do it the right way, we would take him back to his hometown or something,” Noel said.
“I think given the circumstances, taking him to Washington state or wherever he called home, is out of the question,” Hank said, “now I’m up for taking him back to DC though if y’all think that’s what’s best.”
Shelby had rejoined the group at this point.
“No, we should just give him a nice burial right here, he would have told us to be practical,” Shelby said.
“Ok it’s settled,” said Logan, “I’m going to find a shovel or something to dig with, you go find a burial spot and maybe some items to decorate the exterior with.”
Logan went off in the direction of a town that they had recently passed. About a half mile in, he discovered a road maintenance shed and was able to locate a pick ax, but no shovel. The others had chosen an open space parallel to the rows of apricot trees. Logan went to work with the pick ax, loosening the ground, doing his best to extract the dirt and form a hole. Within fifteen minutes, the hole was sufficient.
“It looks about right,” Hank said.
Hank looked like one of those guys that would boss people around during manual labor jobs but never got his hands dirty himself, but surprisingly he was the opposite. Even with a back injury and other ailments, he grabbed the pick ax from Logan about halfway through and went at it like a machine, not stopping to catch his breath or take a break until the hole was completed. Logan and Hank proceeded to lower Garret’s body into the hole and backfill the hole using their boots and the pick ax.
Logan remembered when he first met Garrett; it was just after the alien attack on the cell phones and Garrett had traveled with him to DC and then been on almost every mission with him since then. From attempting to tow an alien craft with a helicopter, to landing an alien craft on top of a skyscraper in New York City, Garrett had performed a lot of daredevil stunts. He took risks that needed to be taken in order to keep moving the given mission in the right direction. He was a great friend and person that they would all miss.
Shelby and Noel had gathered some driftwood, and once the hole was backfilled they placed the driftwood on top of it in a formation that spelled out the letter ‘G’. Logan bowed his head and the others followed suit. They stood there for a few moments of silence before heading back up to the road.
2
Poison Oak
Clyde McGill, was attempting to splash some water on his face and make the most of the day ahead of him, but nothing came out of the faucet in his Redondo Beach bachelor pad.
“Mothafucker” he muttered, but it wasn't the same unpleasant sound as when most people used vulgar language. It had a nice melodic ring to it, as it he were singing the word.
With not much to do these days in the way of work, a heavy night of drinking and watching old Western movies had become the norm.
His real name was Jeremy but he had been called Clyde one time in school and had decided to roll with it every since. Clyde was the type of guy that left a lasting impression on people; he was incredibly smart, athletic, and knew how to get people to say ‘yes’ no matter how ridiculous the request. It was hard to be in a bad mood when entering a conversation with him and still be in a bad mood by the end of the conversation.
When in Law School at The Ohio State University, Clyde wanted to prove to his friends that the Bar exam wasn’t rocket science, so he went out to Greek Row the night before the exam and was the last man standing in a Beer Olympics competition. Naturally, the next day he stumbled into the exam, barely able to open his eyes, and got the highest score out of all his fellow law student peers. In addition to that, he played shortstop for the Buckeye Baseball Team and was drafted by the Dodgers, but chose to forego that option to work his way up the ladder to a stunt man position with Metro Goldwyn Mayer television and film company.
Clyde walked to the kitchen sink to see if that one worked, but stopped short when he noticed a piece of paper on the ground near the front door. He picked up the paper which had no company letterhead and simply read it out loud to himself:
Dear Resident,
You’ve probably noticed by now that your water has been shut off.
Let’s cut to the chase.
If you would like your water turned back on, you will need to pay us $400 per month.
And yes, we have control of the water in every house and business in the area, so you won’t have luck going elsewhere to find it.
Contact the below phone number to arrange a payment drop-off location.
Thank you in advance and have a nice day!
Have a nice day! What a bunch of jerk-offs he thought.
Money didn’t have much value as of today because not many stores were open, and most of the basic necessity stores had been looted. The country was in a dysfunctional state, so no one needed to pay for goods or services. This group must have been anticipating that money would eventually regain its value, so they were trying to capitalize on it now. They must have hacked the into the water agency’s system and taken over control.
I gotta hand it to them, it’s pretty genius. Why didn’t I think of this while i was sitting around on my ace, feeling sorry for myself and watching movies. On one hand I want to kill the pricks that are behind this but on the
other I want to high five them for a ‘job well done boys’.
“Sir the phone lines are overloaded with calls. Apparently all cars have been disabled; their electrical systems have been fried. As you can imagine, this has caused a chain reaction with a lot of cars crashing into one another and quite a few explosions too.”
“Oh don’t tell me this kind of bad news, especially on my birthday,” said President Taylor to the assistant who had been answering the phone. “Get General Kaplan in here, we’re going to have to start brainstorming ideas.”
Approximately ten minutes later General Kaplan entered the President’s office. It wasn’t a traditional oval office anymore after the White House had been rebuilt.
“Thomas my man, what can I do you for?” General Kaplan said to the President.
“Bad news once again. All cars have been disabled. I don’t know the extent of the damage or the death toll yet,” the President said.
“Disabled, like inoperable or blown up?”the General said.
“Both, I believe the electrical systems have been fried, and because of that, some explosions have been created too.”
“It must have been the Zyrgians that caused this, what do you think?”
“Yes it sounds too similar to the cell phone attack, my fear is becoming a reality—we have not wiped out the Zyrgian aliens yet,” President Taylor said.
There was silence for a moment before either of them spoke again.
“Do you remember the Perez Initiative of 2023? To summarize, every single person had to turn in their cars or face hefty fines. The cars that they turned into the government were replaced by new cars that all had the same electrical system and ran off of the same grid,”General Kaplan said.