by Nate Castle
“What do you think guys, I say yes,” President Kaplan said.
The rest of them all nodded in approval.
“But how come only 15 guys? That’s a small team, “Logan said.
“It is, but we have to take a chopper instead of a plane and that’s all I can fit,” Carter said.
“And to solve the problem of the prisoners behaving?” Thomas said.
“I put ankle monitors on each one. If they try to escape we can track them. If they try to take off the monitor, there is a capsule lodged in their stomach that I made each of them swallow that will burst open if the ankle monitor is destroyed. Inside the capsule is a substance that will temporarily paralyze the person,” Carter said.
“Good God we’ve come a long way with technology. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could also tag the aliens with one of these ankle monitors, so that we know where they are hiding out at?” Hank said. “Come with me Carter, I’ve got some special weapons that I’ll give you guys, I designed them specifically for killing the aliens.”
Carter left to follow Hank.
“How will they know where to find their targets?” Logan said.
“I’ve put the word out to all of the refuge facilities along the west coast. We’ll send the chopper that way, and hopefully they are close enough when I receive a phone call from one of the facilities alerting us that the attackers have arrived,” President Kaplan said.
12
Memory Loss
Logan and Hank spent the next two hours assembling two teams of brave volunteers. They had hundreds of people to choose from, but preferred to keep it limited to those they already knew. In total they ended up with twenty on each team. Logan and Hank chose to be on the NYC team because that was deemed to be the more challenging task of the two. By this point, the foundation of Hank’s new White House had been poured and the frame was built. The building even had a roof on it now. Hank hoped that when they returned from this mission, the building might be ready to act as a shelter.
President Kaplan, Garrett, Christina, and Noel all chose to be on the local team, where they would protect the crafts inside the machine shop. Thomas and Sierra joined the NYC team. It didn’t phase Sierra that she was pregnant, she wanted to help out in any way she could.
For the NYC team, a small plane was loaded up with food, water, sleeping bags, and most important of all the anti-alien guns that Hank developed. Hank also threw in some regular guns, he thought they might come in handy at some point. They had no way of knowing how long they would have to remain in New York for, so they needed to be prepared. Hank hopped in the cockpit of the plane and fired her up, while the rest of the team got situated in the cabin. Hank, with his prior Air Force experience, wouldn’t have a problem flying the plane. Before the hatch was shut, the local team stood there and said their goodbyes and wished the NYC team good luck. The plane took off across the grass lawn that acted as a runway.
The local team loaded a semi-truck with the essentials they would need. Although the machine shop was just across the street, it would take many trips of carrying items as opposed to one trip if they used the semi-trailer. Once inside the machine shop, they did a deep clean of the area, moving thing like spare engines out of the way, so they had room to set up cots throughout the main room.
“Garrett, do you have those landmines that Hank gave you?” President Kaplan said.
“Yeah, where do you want to put them?” Garrett said.
“I’ll show you,” President Kaplan said.
Garrett was clutching a large crate on wheels and pulled it outside to follow President Kaplan.
“You’ve got an interesting decision to make in the near future,” President Kaplan said.
“And what’s that?” Garrett said.
“Who are you gonna pick between Christina and Noel. You’ve got Noel, whose natural beauty makes people stare when she walks into a room. But then you’ve got Christina who is a little rough around the edges in the beauty category, but has definitely made an impression with her intelligence. She’s likely the more aggressive of the two in the sack, which can be good and bad depending on what you’re looking for,” President Kaplan said.
Garrett laughed before he replied, “Way to give it to me straight, cut right to the chase.”
“What I’m more concerned with than the aliens, is the bomb that will drop when you make up your mind and finally choose one. The one that doesn’t get chosen is gonna start a riot with the other. It doesn’t seem like it now because they interact with each other just fine, but you’ll see that’s all an act,” President Kaplan.
“Well that means I should wait until after we take care of business with the aliens before I pick one then?” Garrett said.
“That would be wise Garrett, that would be wise,”President Kaplan said.
“Good talk, Kaplan. Now show me how you want to set up these mines,” Garrett said.
Hank had produced custom landmines, similar to the bullets and grenades that contained boron and silicon in them.
“Start in that far corner, and place one every 10 yards going across until you reach that tree. And then come towards the machine shop 10 yards and start the next row, but stagger it so the mines are still 10 yards apart, but offset from the previous row. Keep making rows until you are 20 yards from the building,” President Kaplan said. “I’ll do the same around the back of the building.”
These landmines weren’t you’re average war mines, they were very sophisticated. President Kaplan was given a device that looked like and iPad which had controls on it. He could turn the landmines on and off with the press of a button. This was useful because if members of the team needed to leave the building for whatever reason, rather than having them guess where the mines were located and risk getting blown up, he could shut off the mines for safe passage. When the task was done and they got back inside he briefed everyone.
“Listen up, from now on if you exit this building you need to be extremely careful. The perimeter is lined with landmines and although I have a device that can supposedly turn them off and on, I don’t 100% trust Hank’s creation. This means that you need to walk in a specific pattern when you’re out there to bypass the mines,” he said.
There was a whiteboard on one of the walls, he grabbed a dry-erase marker and drew a diagram of the landmine grid. Referring to the grid he said, “When you exit the first mine is not for 20 yards. Mines in each row are 10 yards apart. Mines in the adjacent row are staggered by 5 yards,” he said, and drew a path with the marker so they could understand what the hell he was talking about.
“Any questions or concerns?” he said.
One guy’s hand shot up, “Yeah, why didn’t you make the first mine start right at the entrance to the building instead of 20 yards from it, would that be better protection?”
President Kaplan took a moment before he responded. He didn’t want to get angry with how dumb the guy’s question sounded because he was in a different role now as President. Back when he was just a General, he would have snapped at the guy and called him a ‘Mental Midget’ but now he had to keep his composure.
“If the mines are too close to the building, when triggered they might blow up the building. Does that answer your question?” he said.
The guy who asked the question sheepishly nodded, realizing he sounded like a dufus, and that when teachers in school tell you ‘There is no such thing as a dumb question’, that this didn’t apply to real life.
“Alright then, moving on to the next order of business…..” President Kaplan said.
He was interrupted by an IT guy who walked into the main room, “Sir, I need to speak to you a moment.”
President Kaplan put his pointer finger up to show the team that he would be back in 1 minute and to stay put. He walked out of earshot with the IT guy.
“Sir, I just received a call with some bad news. The team that we sent to the West Coast to execute the prisoner-aliens or whatever you want to call ‘em involved in the mass s
laughters? Well they were directed to Scottsdale after intel showed the prisoner-aliens there. When they arrived at the location of the next target, the humans defending the building opened fire and our on our guys because they thought our guys were more of the prisoner-aliens. Equipped with only Hank’s anti-alien guns, our guys couldn’t do much in the way of defending themselves. They fired off as many shots as they could at the prisoner aliens amidst the barrage of bullets, but the problem was, we didn’t take into account that the prisoner-aliens might not be affected by the anti-alien bullets, because they took on the form of a human body. Regular bullets would have done the trick, “the IT said, pausing to take a breath.
“Jesus Christ, “President Kaplan said, “Is that it? Is there any good news you can tell me?”
“Not really sir, all of our men perished in the incident. A few of the prisoner-aliens were killed by the humans defending the building. One of our men was able to tag a prisoner-alien with a tracking device. So we might be able to track where the alien goes, until it discovers the tracking device,” the IT guy said.
“And what about Carter? He wasn’t on the front lines, he just flew the chopper right?” President Kaplan said.
“We lost him too,” the IT guy said.
“You know what we forgot to bring?” Logan said.
“There are so many supplies on this plane, we couldn’t have fit anything else,” Hank said.
“We should have brought gas masks,” Logan said.
“God Damnit you’re right,” Hank said.
“We have a few options; we can call D.C. and someone from there bring them to us, we can try to find some in one of the buildings around here, or we can figure out how to make our own,” Logan said.
“Find someone to call D.C. Hopefully they can bring us some, because it’s going to be a royal pain in the ass and waste of our time if we have to make them for everyone,” Hank said.
Hank had just landed the plane at LaGuardia airport. From there it would be a 30 minute drive to the skyscraper. On the tarmac, they all scanned the area for the best driving option. Thomas pointed to a box truck, the ones with an oversized box that are used to transport traveler’s bags. The twenty members of the team began unloading the contents from the plane, while Hank started up the box truck and drove it next to the plane before parking. It was a tight fit, but they managed to fit all of the cargo and sixteen people in the box, while four rode up front in the cab.
Upon arrival at Park Avenue, Hank asked a pretty pertinent question, “Which one is it?”
“You’re joking right?” said Thomas, who was riding in the cab with Hank, Logan, and Sierra.
“Do I ever joke?” Hank said.
Skyscrapers lined both sides of the street, and they had no clue which rooftop the alien craft was parked on.
“For supposedly being smart people, we sure have fallen off the diving board into the stupidity pool a lot recently,“ Logan said.
“Do we call Garrett to find out which building it is or do some exploration?” Thomas said.
“One of us needs to get to the top of the tallest one and then we might be able to spot the craft,” Hank said.
“I’ll do it,” Logan said, “Taylor, you’re coming with.”
At this point they were out of the box truck. Hank opened the rear door where the cargo and other members of the team were. Once the people had exited, Hank spent a moment grabbing some items from the cargo crates.
“Here, take these,” Hank said, and handed the items to Thomas and Logan. Included were two alien guns, two regular assault rifles, one SatCom radio, a cordless power drill, and a box of Hank’s special grenades.
“We’re not going to make that mistake again where people aren’t armed with the right type of guns,” Hank said, “Just in case we don’t see you for a while, now you’re self-sufficient.”
Logan and Thomas nodded at Hank and headed towards the double doors at the front of a building they decided was the tallest one.
“Can you see anything yet?” Logan said to Thomas who was scanning the skyline trying to spot the alien craft from the roof they were on.
“No, but I do see another alien craft heading our way,” Thomas said.
“It’s about time. We might as well get this over with. I mean, after all, it seems like we have spent the past six months preparing for another attack. Now we can put some of that knowledge to use,” Logan said.
“I can see our craft now, it’s three buildings over, do you see it too?” Thomas said.
“Roger,” Logan said.
“We won’t have time to make it there unless the aliens land there, and in that case we have no choice but to head over there. I’ll radio down to the others to let them know its location though,” Thomas said.
Down at ground level, Hank had noticed the alien craft landing nearby and ushered everyone back into the box truck.
“Quick, get back inside! We have to get to a covered area,” he said.
When everyone was in the truck, he put it in gear and drove in the opposite direction from where the alien craft was landing, eventually turning into a driveway on the right. It was the entrance to a parking garage and required verification before the yellow entry stick would flip up, allowing them in. Hank didn’t need verification, he simply rammed the box truck into the yellow stick, causing it to split in two pieces. He parked the truck one level below the roof.
“We’ll have to go to the roof to see what’s going on, but we need a spot to take cover when necessary, and I also want this truck to be in one piece if we need to make a quick getaway,” Hank said.
Once everyone was out of the truck, he handed each person an anti-alien gun and instructed them how to use it.
——
“You think you can shoot that far?” Thomas said.
“Definitely. The question is do you want me to take the shot now, or wait a minute to see what they’re up to?” Logan said.
“You better take the shot while you still can,”Thomas said.
They were laying down on the rooftop, with both of their guns pointed at four aliens which had exited their craft that landed in the middle of the street below.
“Hey did you ever play Call of Duty?” Thomas asked Logan.
“You talking ‘bout the video game? Yeah I’ve played it. Why are you sidetracking me though, I thought you wanted me to take the shot?” Logan said.
“My kid used to play it. Sometimes I would play it with him. I was so bad at it though and it made me wonder if I would be bad at those sort of missions in real life too,” Thomas said.
“Yeah I’d get frustrated because someone would kill you on the game, and then you would hear them over the speakers talking trash to you, and it was always like a ten year old kid,” Logan said.
He figured that Thomas was trying to stay distracted by talking about the video game, so that he didn't focus on the reality in front of him; if they didn’t play their cards right they could die. And there is no ‘respawn' feature in real life.
POP! The sound resonated, but not as loud as expected, which was to their advantage.
Logan took the shot. The bullet sped through the air and miraculously landed on target, striking one of the four aliens in the chest. Thomas followed suit and fired off a shot, but was not successful because the other three Zyrgians sidestepped away from the one that had just gotten shot.
“Fuck, I don’t want to give you all the glory!” Thomas said.
Logan, still with one eye closed, looking through his scope, fired off another shot, this time striking the craft the Zyrgians were standing next to.
“I’m hoping they can’t re-enter their craft now, because of the poisonous gas that was just released from my bullet,” Logan said.
It had been four minutes since the first alien was struck by the bullet, and it finally showed signs that the bullet was successful. The alien that got hit, fell to the ground uncontrollably and appeared to be lifeless.
13
Caravan
“I have a craft in my sights, over,” Garrett said into a walkie-talkie. He was positioned in a tree stand a hundred yards from the White House machine shop. This tree stand had functioned as one end of the zipline that was used to cross the sinkhole before they had been able to fill it in with concrete. Garrett was by himself, equipped with an anti-alien gun and an assault rifle. He also was wearing a gas mask, not wanting to take any chances.
“We’re ready,” President Kaplan said back to Garrett. He was inside the machine shop with ten others. The rest of the team was scattered around the perimeter of the machine shop, trying to create a tactical advantage.
“This is President Kaplan,” he said into his walkie-talkie, but it was on a different frequency this time, “Move all civilians into the tunnel immediately, it’s time. Over.”
The alien craft that Garrett spotted landed a quarter-mile south of the machine shop, and the hatch opened.
“Oh lord, they have bots this time,“ Garrett said, “By the way, has anyone thought about making a super chip barrier?”
Four UDO bots were released from the craft and began trekking towards the machine shop.
President Kaplan said, “One step ahead of you. We surrounded the White House tunnel entrance with the super chips to protect the civilians, and also, we have made an additional barrier past the landmine grid. Hopefully, between this barrier and the landmine grid, the aliens won’t be able to get anywhere near the craft inside. These bots do throw a monkey wrench in the mix though.”
“You guys all wearing your gas masks in there? The bots just released some sort of purple gas into the air,” Garrett said.
“Right when I start thinking we have the advantage, my hopes and dreams are crushed,” Thomas said and chuckled. Him and Logan were still on the roof of the skyscraper in NYC.
He was referencing the new Zyrgian craft that has just landed next to the other one in the street.