The Deadliest Earthling

by Gibson Morales

  There was a loud crack. He snapped his head up to see smoke billowing from the ridge opposite them. The spot where all the militia had congregated. Gunfire and pulse surge whines followed, blending into one raucous cacophony. Johnny pulled up his sleeve: 11:39 a.m. The militia were supposed to hold off until 11:45. But then again, when you put hundreds of anti-Anunnaki near an Anunnaki hot spot, conflict tended to ensue regardless of schedules.

  “Let’s go,” Sledge said, descending the hill.

  At that, they threw caution, and lots of dirt, to the wind. Johnny almost tripped over a few rocks but managed to leap away whenever he sensed a tumble coming.

  The whole ride could’ve been sliced out of a wild dream. Bombs and ear-piercing cracks echoed around the crater, drowning out their labored breaths. Dust coated the sweat slicking his skin, his feet taking pounding after pounding. He cringed at the sharp jabs, thinking he was bound to twist an ankle at some point. Then the jarring sensation of falling slowed time to a standstill. He brought his arms out in front of him, only to find his gun lodged in his grip. And the next thing he knew, he was barreling down the slope headfirst.

  The impact cost him a few seconds of time. Blinking, he realized he’d hit the dirt. His whole body ached, his hands stinging especially. He checked that the cloaking was still active. For him yes. He craned his head and saw the ghost figures of the Snake-eaters joining him.

  Ninja reached him first and straight out picked him up.

  “You okay?”

  “More or less,” Johnny said, still partially on autopilot.

  “Think you can keep running without falling?” Sledge asked. A slight snub but one that couldn’t be helped.

  “Yeah,” Johnny said.

  “Then come on. Fast but steady. Stay together,” Sledge said, looking up from his watch. He knew it too. The minutes they had lost because the ship couldn’t handle the Tabernacle’s mannadium radiation. And the minutes they’d lose if they didn’t hurry up.

  A couple of seconds catching their breath and shaking off minor hurts, and they assembled into a tight group.

  They resumed their jog, giving Johnny a first-hand view of the Tabernacle crater. As far as he could see, men and women dressed in grey-green jumpsuits were thrusting shovels and pickaxes into the black dirt, filling large black containers with pieces of gold and other metal or hauling away those buckets. Anunnaki overseers roamed about, perhaps only as a precaution considering these were not normal slaves. They were the Ascendi’s mind slaves.

  Above, Anunnaki rode hovering silver platforms, a few with slaves. Some emerged from metal hatches around the rim of the crater. They must’ve installed makeshift shelters inside the earth there. Daunting to think the Anunnaki had managed a construction project this massive in only two weeks. Either that or they’d uncovered them from Earth’s past.

  Johnny settled into a steady run when his mind seemed to skip over a couple of seconds in time. He swore he’d moved ahead several feet too quickly. His head grew foggy and he checked his watch. A simple brown analog, but it included a second timer.

  He followed the seconds.

  Twenty-one.

  Twenty-two.

  The disorienting wave hit him again. He glanced at his watch and saw the seconds had skipped ahead.

  Thirty-eight.

  Thirty-nine.

  Icy fear seemed to invade his mind. As if the feeling itself weren’t normal. Wasn’t purely of his own making.

  The air around him was hot and dry. Sweat pricked his forehead, and yet a chill crept up on him.

  The mind Conifer works like an infection. If you break free of it, you can’t be controlled again. However, you never truly broke free of it. You merely delayed me using it on you. And since then its power has lurked in your mind, growing. Now it will be that much easier to control you.

  The Ascendi Major.

  Maybe you should worry about the militia first, Johnny thought hard, clenching his jaw. He scanned the crater for the Major, but there were too many other Anunnaki.

  A sensation of humbleness cut into him. Not his own. The Ascendi’s. He couldn’t conquer all the militia minds at once. But he could focus on Johnny’s mind alone. And suddenly Johnny could feel a foreign presence inserting itself into his thoughts. Worming its way through the folds of his brain.

  “Johnny,” Laura whispered.

  Evidently he’d slowed down drastically. Ten feet ahead of him the Snake-eaters had stopped, turned around, and jogged his way.

  “What is it?” Sledge said.

  Johnny’s eye twitched and his knees buckled. His mind dulled as a new consciousness imposed itself on his. He willed himself to focus on his friends and New Bagram’s refugees. Everyone who needed this mission to succeed. All that came was a deep regret.

  “Can’t focus on both,” he managed. Helplessness consumed him as he realized the Ascendi would have complete control very soon. Was this what sleep paralysis syndrome (a side effect of abductions) felt like?

  He couldn’t fight physically and mentally. Two battlegrounds at once was too much. And maybe the mental strain had hit its peak, because a stupid idea came to him. So stupid it would have to eject the Ascendi from his mind.

  Cringing as the Ascendi’s foreign brain forced its way into his, he pulled the Conifer necklace off and held it out. As long as Sledge kept the cloaking activated upon touching it, they’d stay invisible even while transferring it from one person to another.

  “One of you use it. For a few…”

  He meant to say for a few minutes but couldn’t finish. Sledge held back a look of concern and reached for it.

  “I think I can manage.”

  Johnny wondered if he’d ever used it back in the day with the Eagle. Once Sledge wore the Conifer necklace, Johnny gathered what few thoughts were still his. He could feel the Ascendi entering him like a living poison. Soon he would be able to truly read his mind.

  “Ascendi controlling me. Hit,” he said, pointing to his liver.

  “Johnny,” Laura said, crouching down by him. “Fight it.”

  “Trust me,” Johnny said, tasting sweat dripping onto his lips. He pointed again to his liver. “Hit.”

  Sledge smiled reassuringly to Laura. “Ninja, Demo, grab his arms.”

  Johnny shut his eyes and seconds skipped by.

  There was a rush of fear in him as the Snake-eaters grabbed him by the arms and held him up. A sacrificial lamb. He thought about Orun’s training. The sickening anticipation and the God-awful pain of the punch itself.

  He stopped fighting against the Ascendi’s control. Instead, he embraced the Ascendi. A grey figure formed in his mind’s eye.

  Open your eyes, the Ascendi ordered, loud and clear. Just like that Johnny’s eyelids flew apart to see Sledge’s knuckles crash into his side. A surge of agony flushed through him. More than an eye-opener, it opened his mind and the Ascendi’s presence vanished from him.

  Johnny fell back, and his head connected with the dirt. The sky blurred above him for a few seconds. He waited. For the Ascendi’s voice or its taunting images. Nothing came. He’d forced the Ascendi out for good.

  “Are you some kind of a masochist?” Ninja said, peering at him with puzzled eyes.

  Johnny realized he was smiling.

  “He ain’t,” Sledge said. “It was the Ascendi. Trying to link to his mind with a Conifer. But when it did, it would’ve felt all he felt. I think that was enough pain to shatter the connection.”

  Johnny nodded. He figured the Ascendi had taken the brunt of the pain, because the blow to his liver didn’t feel as intense as he feared. Still, his body was as heavy as a log. And weak.

  “Carry him,” Sledge said after a few seconds. He placed Johnny’s Conifer chain back over his neck. “We can’t waste any more time.”

  They brought Johnny up and hurried on together. Despite the bombs exploding around the crater’s rim, the fact that they were behind on time, and that his friends were still the Ascendi’s mental cap
tives, he reveled in the stunt. Under better circumstances it would’ve been a cause for cheer. If they could accomplish this, small as it might be, they could pull off a little bit more.

  You underestimate me, the Ascendi Major spoke, harsh but calm. It sounded more distant this time.

  Johnny frowned. And he noticed the pause in Ninja’s and Demo’s grip over him. They’d heard too.

  “Wh-who was that?” Sledge stammered, all of them slowing to a jog. “Was that him? The Ascendi Major?”

  “Yes,” Johnny said soberly.

  “Been a long time since I heard his voice. Too bad he can’t hear us,” Sledge said, squeezing a fist.

  Then he wasn’t in Johnny’s head. More likely he was sending out a kind of mental broadcast. The Snake-eaters darting their heads around was pointless. They wouldn’t find the Ascendi.

  I make a simple offer to you now, Johnny Aldrin. One I believe you knew was coming.

  Johnny’s breath lodged in his throat. Suddenly Ninja and Demo’s arms felt smothering, and he broke free. Already acid was boiling in his belly.

  Look to the top of the Tabernacle, and you’ll see how.

  Johnny’s head lifted. Atop the Tabernacle stood several figures. Anunnaki and, in contrast, four smaller bodies. He stopped walking and squinted. His eyes gained the sharpness of a falcon’s. Sarah, Hamiad, Skunk, Krem. A black hole formed in him. He stepped back in disbelief.

  Reveal yourself and the Conifer, or your friends die.

  Chapter 48

  “No,” Laura uttered.

  “Don’t make any rash decisions Johnny,” Sledge said, the words riding a tremor.

  Johnny tightened his grip on his rifle so hard that the back of his hands trembled with the throbbing of his veins. Gunfire and pulse surges thundered overhead. Anunnaki on their platforms blazed away as the Brotherhood militia poured down the hill. Smoke and dust rose up from the crater slope, men falling while metal shields formed on the platforms. The way the militia was firing, stray bullets could so easily miss the Anunnaki and hit his friends instead.

  “Wait,” Johnny cried to anyone who might listen.

  Sledge’s hand shot up. “Let’s think this through. Okay?”

  Sledge might as well have said nothing. All Johnny could think about was Hamiad, Sarah, Krem, and Skunk. A single step from death.

  Put down your weapons now, or the slaves begin to die. All of them.

  Johnny lowered his rifle but realized the Ascendi hadn’t directed that at him. He and the Snake-eaters were still cloaked.

  The rumble of gunfire subsided for an instant, replaced by puzzled shouts. The Brotherhood had heard. A single battle cry echoed louder than the others, and the gunfire started up again, completely disregarding the Ascendi’s threat.

  Johnny’s insides melted. The militia had lied. They had actually lied. Never before had he wished death on a human being, but suddenly he hoped a glider drone launched one of its explosives on them.

  “What are they doing?” Laura cried.

  The slaves at the far end of the crater, just below the rampaging Brotherhood militia, stopped their digging and hauling. All at once, they began running toward the militia as they descended the slope. The first soldiers brushed past the slaves. But the slaves persisted, trying to tackle them. Johnny swallowed, his throat raw.

  He watched in horror as a Brotherhood soldier leveled his rifle and mowed down two slaves hell-bent on taking his life. The two hit the ground lifeless even as Johnny wished they’d make some motion. Give a sign that this wasn’t the beginning of a massacre.

  Another gunshot. A third slave dead.

  Strange that Sledge stood behind him. Because Sledge had been the instructor to point out that in a hostage situation, you bit the bullet, so to speak. You didn’t succumb to the bad guy’s threats. You fired anyway regardless of who they were threatening to kill. But teaching it and doing it were two different things. And the Brotherhood showed too little hesitation.

  Final chance: Reveal your Conifer, and embrace your friends once more. Continue hiding, and you’ll watch their bodies crumble.

  Rage sparked in him. Hatred at the Brotherhood and the Ascendi. The Ascendi could’ve avoided this. Could’ve simply used a glider drone to fight off the Brotherhood. Instead, it was resorting to these horrid games.

  If Johnny were closer, he might’ve run and tried to put himself between the soldiers and the slaves. Anything to stop the shooting. But from here he could do nothing. He’d had enough. There was no way he could let his friends die, let alone the entirety of the slaves.

  “Set off the bomb,” Johnny said, running ahead. He prayed that Demo followed through with that because this would be their one and only chance. Not a big chance, considering the bomb required a couple of minutes to start up.

  Johnny revealed himself and waved the Conifer. Faint shadows danced along the dark dirt as a series of platforms converged overhead from every angle, flooding his vision. Anunnaki overseers towered over him, thrusting out their arms. He could see the flat silver orbs in the center of their palms, where pulse surges sprang from. The sun on their faces outlined their sinister eyes and thin, mirthless lips.

  “A smart decision,” the Ascendi said. This time the words were real. Audible to his ears instead of his mind.

  He stared down at Johnny impassively. “Forty Earth orbital cycles ago, I learned how heartless humans could be,” the Ascendi said, calm and collected.

  “The Games,” Johnny said.

  “Yes, but that cruelty isn’t a purely human trait. Your ancient ancestors learned it from us Anunnaki, after all.”

  Johnny braced himself as an Anunnaki lumbered at him and yanked the Conifer chain off his neck. It tossed it up to the Ascendi.

  “I, well, better I show you.” The Ascendi Major grasped the optical Conifer, and suddenly Johnny saw the hologram of another Ascendi. Identical, but asleep, maybe even dead. And inside a metal pod. He’d heard rumors the Anunnaki used advanced suspended animation technology. Maybe this was one of those.

  The gunfire from the battle stopped suddenly. Men began screaming instead. More frantic than afraid. Johnny gave a glance. Worse than the screams, the sight of guns floating into the air.

  Expression hollowed out, the Ascendi ran his fingers through the hologram and let it fade. “The Ascendi Beta. The Sinsers promised to keep our brother alive. But all this time that was a lie.”

  Johnny’s eyes dimmed. If he had to die, why draw it out? Did the Ascendi expect him to feel pity? Not likely he would.

  And then, as if reading his mind after all, the Ascendi said, “Above all else, I am a thinker. As a thinker, I experience virtues more than emotions. So fair is fair. I give you your friends. One last time.”

  The platform they were on lowered to the ground as the Ascendi exchanged words in Nebirian with the nearby Anunnaki.

  Sarah, Hamiad, Krem, Skunk. Something unknotted in him, but Johnny didn’t dare believe it. This could so easily be a hologram. Still, he ran at them and wrapped his arms around Krem’s and Hamiad’s grey jumpsuit chests. Warm, dirty, weak. So, so real.

  Chapter 49

  His friends came alive and they fell together. One huddled pack of tired, sweaty, and trembling New Bagramites a long way from a home that no longer existed.

  Words blended into a collection of exclamations, laughs, and jumbled statements.

  “What? H-how did you get here?” Krem stammered.

  “I came to rescue you guys,” Johnny said, cracking up. It wasn’t exactly true, but it felt like the right thing to say. Probably closer to the opposite, because suddenly Hamiad’s eyes dimmed. Sarah’s widened in terror. Their little reunion cut short by the fact that a ring of Anunnaki soldiers surrounded them.

  His hands draped over Krem’s and Skunk’s shoulders, Johnny looked at each of them in turn. Dirtier and with an extra scratch or two, but not much more different than that. Part of him wanted to laugh, embrace them all he could. But an ominous obligatory feeling
squashed that hope. He couldn’t forget where they were. What awaited them as soon as the Ascendi Major decided he’d given Johnny enough fair treatment. He listened to the Ascendi talking in Nebirian. Loud and almost with some kind of an intent, if that made any sense. He wasn’t the linguist Sarah was.

  It struck him as ironic that after everything, he found himself at a loss for words. What could they say about their situation?

  He thought about their last conversations before this. The day of the Feast of Endeavors. Did this make up for their falling-out? A stupid concern right now. Still, he at least wanted that resolution. Something to maintain the warm particle accelerator that bonded them right now. And was fading away quickly.

  “The Ascendi’s—”

  Sarah choked on her words.

  “What?” Johnny asked.

  “Can’t say.” Hamiad shook his head and motioned to the Ascendi. And Johnny knew. The Ascendi Major still controlled them enough to limit what they were allowed to say. Maybe Sarah needed to tell him something vital, but she’d never get that far.

  Johnny opened his mouth and stopped at a slight lurch from each of them. The happiness in their expressions vanished. They looked soulless. And with a tinge of sadness he knew time was up.

  A glance up at the Ascendi told him all he wanted to know. The Ascendi Minor joined the Major on the platform, a yellow Conifer glistening in its hand. The gravity Conifer. So the Minor had uplifted the hundreds of rifles from the Brotherhood soldiers.

  An instant later he received an answer in the form of four shadows overhead. The Snake-eaters, groaning and struggling to break free, only they hovered in the air minus their guns.

  The invisible force of the gravity Conifer jettisoned Johnny upward. His feet dangled in the open air, his body flying. Floating actually. At first he thought his mind was playing a trick on him. But he couldn’t move.

  “Fair is fair,” the Ascendi Major said coldly. “The Sinsers eliminated the Ascendi Beta, but the Eagle killed several of my genetic kin. I only took one of hers.”