Surge Together (Book 3 of the Sheffield Chronicles)

by Nate Castle

  President Taylor spoke a few words about how everyone could participate to get prepared for this upcoming grand money funneling scheme later that day. Everyone left the room except for Sierra and Hank.

  Sierra was starting to show her baby bump, the due date was about two months away. President Taylor prayed every night before he went to bed that their baby would get the opportunity to live a normal life.

  “What’s up Hank,” she said.

  “You know what I like about you Sierra, you’re alway so chipper. It really puts others in a good mood,” Hank said, “Before I go outside and help I could you mention to Taylor that on our way back from the Florida Keys we saw an alien craft in the ocean that did not look like a Zyrgian craft. This means one of two things, either the Zyrgians have a new model of craft here, or there is another race of aliens here.”

  Hank sometimes addressed the President by his last name.

  “That’s really useful information,” Sierra said, “Right now, all he has to go on is the word of the Zyrgians, claiming that other aliens are invading us.”

  “So correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s going to be a bitch getting money out from the Federal Reserve bank. The closest ones are in Richmond, Virginia and New York City,” Aaron said to Logan.

  “Back in the day, you’d be correct but in the year 2035, they added another Federal Reserve right here in D.C. What we’re gonna need is a conveyor belt and all of the manpower available. Can you make that happen?”

  “You betcha buddy. I’m psyched to see how this is all gonna play out, to be honest.”

  By the top of the hour, Logan had it all choreographed, with all participants in their positions. He had a megaphone in hand, ready to get the ball rolling.

  The Federal Reserve was located in Potomac Yard inside one of the old train depot buildings. This was 1.8 miles from Ronald Reagan Airport, but with a little bit of brainpower, they determined that taxiing a 777 aircraft to the southernmost point of the airport would put the total distance at 1.3 miles, door to door.

  “On my count. 10-9-8-7—” Logan yelled into the megaphone

  “5-4-3,” the group chanted in unison like they were counting down to the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.

  There were only a few stragglers left at the White House. It was never a good strategy to leave the place empty to be looted or worse, so leadership always made sure that not everyone left even when there was an ‘all persons on hand’ mission.

  A Zyrgian alien craft landed on the lawn. The stragglers were inside the building at the time and noticed the craft immediately but didn’t dare come outside.

  This craft appeared to be the same type as previous ones that the humans had seen and flown, except it looked more modern. The outer shell was a copper color. The circular dome was shiny chrome. The base below the done had some armor added to its already heavy duty legs, and there were six arms protruding out from the midsection of the craft. If you had to guess, you would say the arms were weapons that could be fired from the craft.

  No movement came from the craft, it seemed to just be waiting for something.

  Ten people inside the vault began loading stacks of money onto a portable conveyor belt that led out to the street. At the end of the conveyor belt a human chain had formed, there must have been 500 people in this chain, it was massive. The job here was to transfer each stack of cash from one hand to the other, so that the cash made it to the end of the chain.

  General Kaplan and four others had the classic cars, Kaplan was driving the Camaro. Each driver had their trunk popped open. The last guy on the human train would place each stack of cash that came down the line into the trunk of one of the cars. When that trunk was full, the car would drive away and deliver the money about 400 yards to where the next chain was waiting in front of the aircraft. Clyde was one of the drivers.

  The use of the cars makes no sense. Or does the use of the human chain make no sense, when we could have just used the cars the whole way. But regardless it’s more fun this way.

  A chain of another 50 people were waiting for each car and there were another 10 or so loading onto the plane.

  The process took about an hour, to get $8,727,420 onto the plane. Someone on the leadership team came up with this number as being appropriate based on a forecasting model. They also had to take into account that one hundred passengers needed to fit on the plane in addition to the money.

  After it was all said and done, the majority of the group started to walk back to the White House; the hundred volunteers boarded the plane. Logan and Hank were included, Shelby tagged along, but Noel stayed behind. Clyde wanted to go, but was concerned that if a member of the IHL saw him they might slaughter him on site, because he was sure they had his picture circulating around their organization by now.

  The rest of the passengers were a good mix of Aaron’s construction crew workers and also the Europeans.

  President Taylor put his hand up out the top of the convertible Mustang, signaling for cars following him to stop. He got out and walked back to Kaplan’s car.

  “Trey just informed me over radio that the alien craft we see up ahead has been parked there since we just after we left. Can you tell the guy driving car #5 to hang tight and when the walkers make it to this point, have him divert them around the southeast side of the White House and into the side entrance? Got it?”

  “Yeah I’m catching your drift,” General Kaplan said, “You want the people walking to take a detour so they don’t have to walk past the alien craft to get to safety inside the White House.”

  “Precisely. And you and I will go up to the craft, and see what the hell they are doing here. Let’s hope they came in peace as advertised.”

  President Taylor waited for the General to give instructions to the last car and then the two drove side by side right up the the Zyrgian craft. Not wasting any time, they hopped out of the car and stood there facing the craft, like dogs begging for food.

  Based on the other crafts they had seen, the entrance chute to the craft was located about ten feet from the ground above the base of the craft.

  “They have to know we’re out here. I say wait for them to come to us,” General Kaplan said.

  Just as he started backpedaling for piece of mind, his momentum was forced to shift.

  Thhh Thh Thhh Byyoohhh

  The sound resembled a jackhammer. A long see-through cage came out from a hidden compartment on the craft. It acted like a vacuum and sucked General Kaplan and President Taylor into the craft. They felt helpless, there was nothing they could do to counterattack. All they could do was hope this wasn't the end.

  Inside the craft, they were led by a moving ramp to a room with many computer-like screens and four Zyrgian’s sitting around a desk.

  One began to speak, it spoke perfect English.

  “Relax, we’re just here to talk. As we mentioned in our message we don’t desire anything from the human race except your help. The Fadothial tribe has arrived on Earth, with more crafts waiting to enter your atmosphere.They are the ones that launched the cell phone attack on you and also the attack on your cars.”

  “What?!” was all the President felt was necessary to respond with.

  “Hard to believe, we know. The evidence points to us initiating the attack, but if you look closely at the evidence, you’ll find us not responsible. We just happened to be on Earth when the attack occurred so your people blamed it on us.”

  “Bullshit, you assholes can’t deny the attacks,” General Kaplan had lost his cool.

  “Definition of bullshit and asshole?” the Zyrgian asked a computer device. The Zyrgians voice sounded robotic when it talked and the sentences didn’t flow together, each word was forced.

  President Taylor put his arm around General Kaplan’s shoulder and gave his neck a quick squeeze as if to say, ‘you keep this up and you’re gonna get choked out. Don’t think that I won’t do it’.

  When the Zyrgians learned or were given the knowledge of English,
it must not have included slang words or swear words.

  “Sorry, he get’s emotional when talking about the attacks. I’m gonna need you to explain yourself better though before I believe that your people weren't responsible for the attacks,” President Taylor said, “And also why have we spent so much time fighting you?”

  “Your people provoked us and so we had to defend ourselves by fighting back. The situation kept escalating because your attacks on us kept getting more sophisticated. It’s important to know that we never started the war with you. Here, watch this.”

  A screen on the wall in front of them lit up. A video proceeded to play. At first it looked like a still image of an alien craft, definitely not a Zyrgian one. The craft was hovering, but it was hard to know if this was on Earth or elsewhere. The camera then switched to ground level and quickly panned fro left to right. What you could see were people holding cell phones, looking like they were having a seizure, and then falling to the ground dead.

  “The Fadothials in this video are watching to see the effects of their cell phone attack. Is this evidence enough?”

  “It’ll do for now, “ President Taylor said.

  10

  Forget Protocol

  The Boeing 777, piloted by one of the Brits named Neville touched down near Palm Springs without incident. How did they come to the conclusion that this would be the best place to start?

  It was more of a blind draw than anything, where a name was literally drawn out of a hat, but Hank did have a valid point regarding the location choice. His thought was Palm Springs is a good place to start because you got all them old folks that can’t take care of themselves as well as the younger people can. If we for example get our water shut off, we can scavenge and find a way to survive, but with these Palm Springers, not so much. In other words, start with those who need it most.

  “Listen up,” Logan said into the megaphone. Everyone was now standing outside the plane on the tarmac, “Each of you will take a backpack and fill it with cash. Using the hardcopy lists and printed maps to go along with them, you will go door to door and deliver the allocated amount of $800 to each household. There is a list of criteria also which you can read about. For example, no more than two houses on the same street can be delivered to. We have to ration the money, because we have many more zones to hit. If we help one house on a given street, the idea is that, other houses on the same street can then utilize the running water etcetera at the one house. It’s estimated that we can help almost 11,000 houses get their water back on. Any questions?”

  “Yeah what if a person asks us about where the money came from?” one of the Europeans asked.

  “We under no circumstances tell these people that we are with the US government. If they need an answer just say that we are Good Samaritans. Oh, and I almost forgot. With each delivery you must include one of these typed notes that says, ‘DO NOT Tell the IHL that money was given to you to help get your water back on.’”

  “Anything else boss? This is gonna be fun” the European said.

  “Good luck out there. The timeline for this mission is four days, with the plan of moving the plane to a new geographic area each day,” Logan said, “Be creative, use your imagination, if you locate a vehicle that’s going to much more efficient than doing this on foot. That’s all.”

  President Taylor and General Kaplan were still inside the Zyrgian craft.

  “I have to go and alert my people that we are okay. They witnessed us get ‘abducted’ roughly an hour ago. By this point they are probably planning a full-fledged attack on this craft to get us out,” President Taylor said.

  “I’ll permit it. Be back in fifteen minutes though,” the Zyrgian said.

  “What should I call you?”

  “Like my name? It’s Clearokyt.”

  Clearokyt was sitting down but was an estimated seven feet tall, with three legs instead of two, no clothing, and scales covered his body. If you were describing a Zyrgian to another human you might describe them as a cross between a Ninja Turtle and an Avatar. Clearokyt had two horns on his back, his head was capable of spinning a full 360 degrees. Another noticeable feature was that he had two mouths and hands with extendable fingers.

  “Are you the leader?”

  “On Earth yes, but not of our tribe. Our true leader is on another Earth-like planet for the time being,” Clearokyt said.

  President Taylor walked to the exit chute. General Kaplan was in an awkward situation where he wasn’t sure if he should accompany the President or hang out in the craft with Clearokyt. He chose to stay put, to not run the risk of offending the alien, but he hoped that the President would be back as quick as promised.

  “Yo, Aaron, come with me,” Clyde said. They were in the warehouse across the street from the White House, with no knowledge at all that the President and the General were having a meeting with the aliens.

  “What’s up man?” Aaron said.

  “We have to find some more efficient vehicles, I’m talking like buses,” Clyde said, “A semi with a trailer would be nice too.”

  “Agreed. We cant keep using physical strength to move around materials. Not to mention, how ridiculous was that money transfer deal this morning? If we had a semi truck, we could have moved the whole load of cash to the airplane in about five minutes,” Aaron said.

  The two started to walk west, not sure where they were going, but hoping that it would lead them to a truck and/or bus.

  “Let’s check this place out,” Clyde said, pointing to a sign that read, ‘Joe’s Grab ’N’ Go Auto Yard’

  It was a glorified junk yard where people could go to find car parts. It was suggested that you brought your own tools, and you were allowed to take apart any piece of the car.

  “Good call, I don’t see any trucks or buses here though,” Aaron said.

  “This is true. But what we’re gonna do is take the engine block out of some of these beater cars. Then we’ll put these old motors in one of the buses and trucks that are at the White House’s motor pool parking lot,” Clyde said.

  “So you’re saying that since the new model buses and trucks have been disabled by the alien attack, if we swap the motor for an old one we can get it up and running again?”

  “Correct. And I’m confident I can do all of the work myself,” Clyde said

  “Fantastic, let me radio a team to help bring these engine blocks back,” Aaron said.

  Clyde found two cars that he felt the motors were acceptable in and signaled for Aaron to take note of which ones he chose.

  Next to one of the cars, Clyde stepped in something slimy. When he looked down, he saw what looked like half of a leg, but it was green and purple with scales on it.

  “You’re not gonna believe this. You gotta come check this out man,” Clyde said.

  Aaron hurried over and together they examined the leg.

  “It has to be an alien leg. We need to bring it back to the White House for evidence purposes.

  “Roger that. But put rags over your hands, don’t touch it with your bare hands, you never know it might be highly acidic or something,” Clyde said.

  “Which is more of a priority though, bringing the alien leg back to the White House, or swapping the motors into the bus and truck?” Aaron said.

  “Obviously the alien leg is more important. But I see where you’re going with this. If we bring the leg back, we might get sidetracked and not be able to complete the bus project,” Clyde said.

  “Exactly. So I say we do the motor swap first and then bring the leg back,” Aaron said.

  It was hot in Palm Springs, California which made it an even better decision to provide relief there first. They went off in groups of two, with some threesomes. Everyone had a backpack or duffel bag filled with cash. The drop-offs took longer than anticipated because the residents weren’t the type to just take the money and not ask questions. Logan and Hank chose to pair up. After an elderly man talked their ear off for a good 15 minutes, Hank made a suggestion.<
br />
  “Jesus, should we just put a wad of cash in front of their door, ring the doorbell, and then leave?” he said, “Some of the questions these people are asking I just can’t handle. How about that one guy who pulled out a counterfeit detecting pen and started marking the bills? What a prick. Like we’re gonna go to his house and give him counterfeit money.”

  Logan shook his head in agreement.

  Little by little though, they managed to distribute the cash. Near the end of their ‘route’ they ran into a fellow who wasn’t happy about their unsolicited knock on the door.

  “Da hell you boys doing comin’ round here? You best be leavin’ if you know what’s good for you,” the man who answered the door said. He looked and sounded like Clint Eastwood in the movie Gran Torino.

  Logan wanted to laugh, but decided to put his hands up to show the man that he meant no harm and started to turn around to walk off the porch.

  “Hold it right there, what you got in them bags?” the man said.

  Hank, who froze but was still looking in the direction of the exit, said to Logan, “Should I take care of this bastard right now?”

  “Nope, he has a 12-gauge pointed at us,” Logan said.

  Hank turned around to confirm the news.

  “Slide the bags on over,” the man said.

  Hank and Logan each did so with exaggerated slow motion tosses. The man opened the zipper of each bag and saw the wads of cash. Apparently he had his own version of events, and his voice now made it clear that this situation was escalating fast.

  “First you assholes shut off my water and now you come here to rob me of my money?”

  “The money in the bags is not stolen, we are giving it to residents so that they can get their water turned back on,” Logan said.

  “Bullshit! Come over here both of you. Get on the ground!” the man said.